


Neon Genesis Pandaimonion

by grommile



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Cervix Licking, Crack, Dry Humping, Dubious Consent, Extensible Tongue, F/F, F/M, Lesbian Clonecest, M/M, Multi, Nudity, Oral Sex, Pegging, Switch Ayanami Rei, Threesome - F/F/M, Threesome - F/M/M, Unnatural Mental Influence, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism, condom use, huffing orange kittens, not safe for brains, not safe for work, post-coital oral sex, the author is going to hell for this, this makes no sense, tonguefucking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:42:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 30,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22478110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grommile/pseuds/grommile
Summary: Kaji is running away from Asuka.Rei has reinterpreted the "people becoming one" aspect of the Scenario.Kaworu loves the Lilim.The ghost of a girl with twintails and glasses is haunting Eva-01's cage.The author does not actually know Classical Greek.
Relationships: Aida Kensuke/Ayanami Rei/Ikari Shinji, Aida Kensuke/Suzuhara Touji/Horaki Hikari, Akagi Ritsuko/Ikari Gendou, Ayanami Rei/Ikari Shinji, Ayanami Rei/Makinami Mari Illustrious/Ikari Shinji, Ikari Shinji/Souryuu Asuka Langley, Kaji Ryouji/Katsuragi Misato
Comments: 99
Kudos: 96





	1. A New Reality

Things had already gone Pete Tong for Shinji Ikari. His eye still hurt from when his giant meat robot had gotten stabbed through the skull, he was about to move in with a 29-year-old woman with big tits and no sense of appropriate behaviour, and his father was still a godawful asshole.

The door of Misato's apartment slid open, and Shinji realized that "Pete Tong" was no longer an adequate description. "Pete Townshend" might have been closer to the mark.

There was a man in the hallway. A naked man. A naked man covered in suds, with stubble and a ponytail and a big dick and a hunted look in his eyes.

Misato shouted words at the naked man. The naked man shouted more words back, waving his hands around. Shinji's brain, having just gone into tilt, failed to process the words.

The naked man slunk off further into the apartment, and Misato flicked Shinji's ear, rebooting his brain. "Ow!" he cried. "What's going on?"

"My idiot fucking ex is five episodes early and has left _all his fucking clothes_ in Germany." Misato grabbed Shinji into a hug, pressing her breasts against his back. "I'm going to have to use you as a meatshield, Shinji. Kaji won't make a move on me if there's another man in the room."

Shinji's brain went into tilt again at the sensation of soft feminine flesh pressing against his spine.

* * *

Rei Ayanami's train of thought came to a juddering halt as she felt the fabric of reality lurch sideways and the contents of her stomach lurch upward. She barely managed to make it to the toilet before barfing out a stream of chunky LCL streaked with gasoline rainbows.

Panting for breath, she clung to the porcelain throne as another wave of distortion washed over her. Reality was falling apart. The scenario needed to be recontextualized, and Commander Ikari was not there to help. _Humanity needed to become one to complete the scenario._

Her breathing steadied as the next wave of distortion swept through her chest. _Humans customarily became one by engaging in mating behaviours._

Her grip on the toilet bowl loosened. _Therefore the scenario required humans to mate._

A sudden rush of heat swept through her hitherto vestigial reproductive organs. _Therefore she must encourage mating._

She smiled as she pushed herself upright. The solution was wonderfully perfect. It fulfilled not only the scenario, but also the original imperatives of her template soul, which called for the propagation and preservation of a sapient tool-using species on the host planet.

It would also provide a justification for observing Pilot Ikari in a state of nature with all her senses.

* * *

Shinji's brain was dragged out of tilt by a sudden need to sneeze. As he gathered his wits again, he realized he was now sitting on Misato's sofa with his self-appointed guardian leaning over him, a concerned look on her face. Shinji noted gratefully that she was still in her uniform. If she'd been in the outfit from that Polaroid his brain would probably have crashed again.

"Thought we'd lost you for a moment," she said, straightening up. "Don't worry, I've locked the mighty Naked Man and his Justice Knockwurst in the storeroom. I'm going to go back to HQ and get him some pants from the quartermaster. And an unflattering shirt. And some clown shoes."

Shinji stared after Misato as she departed. He told himself it was because he was confused, and not because his eyes were level with her arse.

It took him less than ten seconds to call himself out as a terrible liar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is what happens when my id and my inner troll get together and huff orange kittens but still manage to have a definite direction.
> 
> You will, I'm sure, be relieved to know that updates are going to be even more irregularly spaced than updates for my sensible stories.


	2. A Gift for Doctor Akagi

Rei walked out of the dingy store with blacked out windows, her purchases distributed across two heavy shopping bags and a hiker's backpack. There would, no doubt, be questions about her sudden change in purchasing habits, but once she apprised Commander Ikari and Doctor Akagi of her new plan, and gave them the presents she'd just bought, she was sure that there would be no real repercussions.

Across the street, Touji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida tried to process what they'd just seen. Rei Ayanami had just come out of a sex shop. Rei Ayanami, the girl everyone was reasonably sure had no libido whatsoever, had just come out of a sex shop with a smile on her face, carrying what looked like half the inventory.

Kensuke was the first to speak. "Did you just see Ayanami?"

"Yeah. What's up with that?"

"I guess it's always the quiet ones."

"We ain't gonna tell anyone, right?"

"Who'd believe us?"

The jock and the otaku looked at each other, then headed back the way they came. Whatever Ayanami was up to, it was obviously safer to go the long way round to the arcade.

* * *

The mad scientist responsible for supervising Rei's welfare was bent over the Commander's desk with her labcoat and skirt flipped up and her panties around one ankle. The man himself was kneading her buttocks like bread dough. _Why do I put up with this man?_ she wondered as she moaned in largely-feigned arousal.

His right hand pulled away suddenly, and returned with resounding force, sending a jolt of endorphin-tinged pain up her spine and drawing an entirely unfeigned gasp from her as she clenched around the dildo in her cunt.

_Oh, right. That's why. Now if only he'd do more of that and less of the baker impression._

Six more spanks landed in quick succession, and then Gendo seized the dildo and started drawing it ever so slowly out of her hole. She bit her lip in anticipation of the vigorous fucking that would surely follow.

As the tip of the dildo slipped free, a rattling noise overhead was followed by the clatter of a ventilation grille falling twenty feet to the floor and a voice very like Rei's, but much more lively, announcing "Fuckbiscuits! I forgot the ceiling was this high."

Nevertheless, the lithe nude form of the synthetic – but visibly authentic – bluenette dropped into the middle of the room a few moments later, holding a black carrier bag with silver print. "Commander. Doctor. There has been a change of plan, and I come bearing gifts to assist in it."

Gendo was first to respond. "Rei. Why are you deviating from the scenario?"

"I have a basal imperative to secure the propagation and preservation of a species of tool-using sophonts on my host planet. Melting everyone into primordial ooze is contrary to that imperative, and so I have adopted an alternative strategy for leading humans to become one with each other," said Rei, a psychedelic orange mandala of wings and claws taking shape behind her as her eyes began to glow red.

"This is not in the scenario," said Gendo in a dulled voice, his left hand slipping limply off Ritsuko's arse.

"Way to state the obvious," sighed Ritsuko, standing up and kicking away her panties. "So now that you've broken the Commander's brain, what's your new proposal?"

"Humans become one by engaging in mating behaviours. I must encourage mating." Rei walked towards the desk. "I have brought you some supplies you may find useful."

"This is not in the scenario," repeated Gendo.

"Oh shut up, you useless muppet," snapped Ritsuko over her shoulder before returning her attention to the nascent demigoddess. "What kind of 'supplies'?"

"Two adjustable harness, four silicone dildos, a ten-pack of pregnancy testers, a cock ring, three different bottles of vagina-safe silicone-compatible personal lubricant, and Maya Ibuki's measurements, address, and home telephone number." Rei paused. "I would take it as a great personal favour if you would notice your kohai. Unresolved attraction makes people's AT fields very noisy."

Ritsuko looked over her shoulder again. Gendo had shut up, thankfully, but he was now slumped in his chair with a vacant expression. "What are we going to do about _him_?"

"I suggest you use these supplies to fuck him up the arse. I understand straight men have a master reset switch there. Now if you'll excuse me I have dildos to deliver." Rei turned on her heel, her orange mandala sweeping harmlessly through Ritsuko's body, and leapt back into the vents.

As she stared after the departing bluenette, Ritsuko felt a faint twinge in her abdomen, on the right-hand side.


	3. The Scenario Spreads

Asuka Langley Souryuu, the Second Child and chosen pilot of Evangelion Unit 02, sat on the floor of Ryouji Kaji's bathroom in the scarlet and black lingerie she'd bought on her father's NERV credit card, wondering how Kaji had managed to disappear in front of her eyes and why he had to play so hard to get.

At least this time she'd managed to get a glimpse of his dick, because she'd caught him naked in the shower by shimming the lock on the bathroom door. It was quite a nice dick, in the admittedly very limited inventory of dicks she'd seen in person, and she was more convinced than ever that it belonged inside _her_. She'd make him understand that, one way or another.

With a heavy sigh, she dragged herself upright. First things first, she needed to change into some knickers that didn't need adjusting every three metres if she tried to walk in them. Then she could see about finding out where Kaji and his dick had vanished to.

* * *

This was not the first time Kouzou Fuyutsuki had walked into an office to find a dazed Gendou bent over the furniture naked, but he could still vividly remember the sight of his desk being besmirched by his star student reaming her thug of a boyfriend with a strap-on. He was moderately grateful that Dr Akagi had apparently finished the job and was in the middle of removing her strap-on. He cleared his throat. "Dr Akagi, would you like a moment?"

She looked up at him and shook her head. "I'm fine," she said, setting the harness down on the desk with the somewhat imposing dildo pointing proudly ceilingward. "Rei's a surprisingly good judge of sex toys. I have no idea where she got it from."

 _She_ does _contain material extracted from Yui_ , mused Kouzou to himself. "Gendou, are you awake?"

"Rei has changed the scenario," announced Gendou, pushing himself upright. "Get a bulk order of lube in, sensei. And tell my son to watch out for Rei."

"Watch out?"

* * *

Gendou's proposed caution to Shinji was a little too late. When he answered the doorbell that had just rung, he found not a Misato without her house keys, but a Rei Ayanami without clothing.

"Pilot Ikari. I wish to experience your body. I believe sexual intimacy will better equip both of us to work together in battle against the Angels."

Only the strangely compelling glow in her red eyes stopped Shinji's brain from plunging into tilt again. "Bwuh? I mean, uh, we kind of don't know each other very well and we're a bit young and—"

His semicoherent ramble was curtailed by Rei pressing her body against his and sticking her tongue down his throat.

He'd always assumed that was a metaphor or an exaggeration or something. Discovering that in Rei's case it wasn't was... less unpleasant than he would have expected. Quite the opposite, in fact, even if he was having trouble getting enough air.

She pushed him back against the wall and retracted her tongue to a more conventional length. "You taste good," she declared. "Where is your bedroom? It would be a more comfortable place for us to experience each other's bodies."

Heart pounding, Shinji barely had the presence of mind to close the front door before leading Rei through the apartment to his bedroom. He had to be dreaming. He couldn't possibly be leading a beautiful, naked, apparently horny girl to his bedroom in real life.

At the door of his bedroom, he pinched himself and yelped. Nothing changed. This really was happening to him. He slid the door open, and was promptly grappled down onto the futon by Rei. She ended up kneeling astride him, rocking her pussy against the bulge in his trousers as she unbuttoned his shirt.

It was all too much for an inexperienced young man who hadn't jerked off for two days. Toes curling, he groaned in ecstasy as his spunk spurted into his boxers. Rei's hips stilled, and she leaned down to whisper in his ear. "I want the next one inside me." She climbed off of him and set about removing his trousers.


	4. Saying "Lost" Would Imply I Wanted To Keep It

Misato stared at the box the quartermaster had put on top of the wrong-sized fatigues. "NERV brand condoms? Since when are those a thing? _Why_ are those a thing?"

"Couple of years now. They're really good. They're made from something like plugsuit material, so they're super thin but also super strong and super stretchy. One size fits anything from gorilla to horse."

"Gorilla?"

"Yup. Average male gorilla has a smaller dick than the average man."

"Well, I don't need them. I requisitioned this shit so I wouldn't end up with twenty centi..." Misato bit her lip and smacked herself on the temple. _Focus, dammit! Stop thinking about that idiot's big..._

The quartermaster put another box on the counter, along with a large bottle of lube. "Can't be healthy having all your blood in your face like that, ma'am."

Misato fanned herself frantically with her map of NERV HQ and grabbed one of the boxes. "I'll take the rest by delivery," she said, pressing her thighs together. "Tomorrow morning would be best."

"Right you are, ma'am. It'll be there tomorrow evening."

Misato retreated from the quartermaster's counter at a speed more usually associated with peregrine falcons.

* * *

Shinji no longer understood whether he was in heaven or hell.

On the one hand, a beautiful naked girl was straddling him with the lips of her wet pussy just barely kissing the head of his cock.

On the other, his father was awful and he was probably going to have to pilot that giant robot again.

"You are thinking about things that aren't me," said Rei. "Let me do something about that."

Shinji's breath caught in his throat as she sank down onto his cock, engulfing his length and driving all thoughts of anything else out of his mind.

"That's better," sighed Rei as she started rocking up and down on him. "You have a good cock."

"You have... unf..." Words were difficult. Everything that wasn't 'enjoy Rei' was difficult.

"A good pussy," Rei supplied helpfully, reaching down to grab his hands and put them on her hips. "Fuck me, Shinji."

"Shinji?" called Misato's voice from the living room. "Where are you?"

Any attempt at a response was stifled by Rei's mouth swooping down onto Shinji's and her tongue plunging into his throat. Shinji started to buck his hips to make up for her reduced range of motion. Rei was important. Rei's pussy was important. Whatever Misato wanted from him wasn't.

* * *

Kaji blinked as the storeroom door slid open to reveal Misato with her dress rucked to her waist, one hand down her knickers, and the other gripping a box with a NERV logo on it. "Katsuragi?"

"We are going to _fuck_ , Kaji. Asuka can't have you if you're _mine_."

Kaji's blood diverted to where it was about to be needed, even as his brain protested that it needed some to work out what was wrong with Misato's claim.

* * *

Shinji was on the verge of his second orgasm of the afternoon, some concept of courtesy the only obstacle. He'd read somewhere that he should try and make the girl come first. He wasn't quite sure how to do that but he—

Rei's tongue retracted from his throat. "Come in me, Shinji," she whispered hotly in his ear.

Giving the girl what she wanted was the best plan, of course, and he obeyed in an instant, hips bucking upward to pump his load into her as deep as he could.

She climbed off of him almost as soon as the last spurt entered her, and then back _onto_ him with her pussy over her face. "Now make _me_ come. Use your tongue."

Nervously, with hardly a clue what he was doing, Shinji started to lick, unsure quite what to make of the taste of their mingled juices.

* * *

Misato looked at Kaji's meat, and then at the very ordinary-sized condom, and raised a skeptical eyebrow. "The QM said it should fit. I'm not sure I believe him."

He snatched the condom from her grasp and rolled it confidently onto his cock. "Admit it, Kacchan, you're out of practice. How long's it been?"

Misato let herself be pushed down onto the floor, spreading her legs to allow Kaji inside her. Out of practice or not, she was plenty wet enough and his safely wrapped cock stuffed her perfectly. "Too fucking long. You?"

"Thirteen days. Filing clerk at NERV Berlin," he said, all sense of self-preservation having apparently deserted him.

"Motherfucker," she growled, digging her nails into his back as he started to fuck her in earnest.

"Pretty sure she – ow – wasn't a mother. She said she was a virgin."

"I'm going to kill you after this," groaned Misato as Kaji's pace quickened. "I'm going to fuck you to death."

"You wouldn't be the first to – unf – try."

* * *

A third of a world away, as she finished pulling on a pair of knickers that weren't composed entirely of atomic spinning wedgie, Asuka felt an icewater chill run down her spine.


	5. Trial of a Twintail

"Well, Miss Makinami, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that you shall once more be manifest on an Earth."

"Yay! I get to have a body again!"

"Specifically, you shall be manifest as a ghost. You have been forbidden to have a body."

"What? That's not fair!" Mari Makinami pouted at the menacing visage of Great King Enma.

"You and I both know that you would use it to paraglide your breasts into someone's face and sexually harass them."

"I did not sexually harass that boy! I only made one pass at him and then I left him alone!"

"While their inventory is far from complete, so far the auditors have reported 742 unwanted overtures towards Shinji Ikari, 317 towards Rei Ikari, 94 towards Rei Ayanami, 23 towards red-headed mixed-race girls named Asuka, and, for some reason that escapes the wit of god and demon alike, 17 towards Peter Langley. Approximately 95% of these incidents would meet statutory guidelines for indecent assault in the local jurisdiction. I have, however, been prevailed upon by Bodhisattva Kanzeon to not pass final sentence on you for now."

"Oh," said Mari in a very small voice, looking down at where her feet would be if she had any. "I promise to be good this time."

"See that you do. May your haunting enlighten you, young lady, and may you not quickly darken my doors again."

* * *

`A.T. FIELD MANIFESTATION IN EVANGELION CAGE 01 · PATTERN TYPE GREEN · THREAT ESTIMATE ZERO`

* * *

Maya started slightly at the sight of her adored sempai walking into the office. The older woman's bleach-blonde hair looked mussed, one of her earrings was missing, and there was not a scrap of cloth to be seen above the collar of her buttoned-up lab coat, bringing a flush to Maya's cheeks as some _very_ distracting images drifted through her mind. "S-sempai? Are you..."

Dr Akagi set down the black carrier bag she was carrying and smiled at Maya. "I'm fine. I've just been... oh, never mind. What's this alert you called me about?"

"Pattern type Green, sempai. What does that even mean?" asked Maya, trying to sneak a peek at what was in the bag without being too obvious. She'd heard about a shop with bags like that and it sold _interesting_ things. Things her mother would have said a nice girl like her shouldn't know about. Things one little corner of her mind liked to imagine her sempai using on her, and another, fiercer corner liked to imagine using on her sempai.

"It means the MAGI are making things up to cover for not knowing what's going on. Come on, Ma—Lieutenant. Grab those portable AT Field scanners and help me check out the cage."

Maya's heart jumped in her chest. Had her sempai just almost called her by her personal name?

* * *

Mari looked around her assigned haunt and silently sighed. Of course she'd been stuck down in the Eva cages where nothing interesting would happen, except maybe that cute Ikari boy (that she needed to _not_ make a pass at if she wanted to not be reincarnated as a tube worm) coming by to get in the giant godmeat robot. And, well, the room would be full of technicians and other boring people when he did, and she wouldn't be able to do anything interesting.

_ping_

The noise wasn't a noise. It made her teeth itch even though she didn't have any teeth.

_ping_

Her gaze lit on the door that had just opened near the top of the cage, and the two women silhouetted in the light from the corridor.

_ping_

She flitted toward them, her twintails trailing behind her in the etheric breeze. They had to be doing something to make that unnoise.

_Ping_

"Sempai, look!" said the cuter of the two women, brandishing a gadget in Mari's direction.

_PING_

"Ow!" cried Mari, recoiling from the pair and drifting back towards the middle of the cage. "Turn it off! It hurts!"

_PINg_

"Did you see something, Maya— I mean, Lieutenant?"

_PIng_

The cute one's blush looked like it would be visible from Neptune. Mari wondered whether she could get away with popping a couple of the snaps on the blonde one's labcoat, before—

_Ping_

—deciding it would probably at the very least doom her to being a mosquito.

"For a moment I think I saw a—"

_ping_

"—girl with twintails. She's gone now."

_ping_

The volume was bearable again, but it was still making her teeth itch. Maybe if she rushed in _really fast_ she could overload the gadget and make it stop.

_ZOOOOM_

_PING!!!!_

* * *

Maya yelped in shock as sparks and smoke erupted from the scanner, reflexively flinging the device away to land in the LCL with a splash. Nerves jangling, she instinctively grabbed onto her sempai for security and—

_there definitely wasn't anything under the lab coat, it would move differently if there was_

—barely managed to suppress the disastrous urge to fling _herself_ away. She stepped away, blushing furiously as she tried to pretend she hadn't noticed Dr Akagi's state of dress. "I'm sorry sempai I didn't mean to grab you like that I was just scared I—"

"It's all right, Maya," replied Dr Akagi, wrapping her arms around Maya. "I don't mind. Come here."

Had the resulting squee not been ultrasonic, it would have hurt Ritsuko's ears.

* * *

"Ow ow ow ow bollocks ow ow bloody buggery ow!" shouted Mari from the middle of the cage.

Rushing the gadget had _hurt_ when it did its "ping" thing at such short range, but at least her teeth didn't itch any more.


	6. Naked Late Lunch

Nominally, the takeaway being avidly devoured by Misato, Kaji, Shinji, and Rei was lunch, on the grounds that nothing the naked quartet had eaten since morning qualified as a meal. The fact that it was gone 16:00 did somewhat put the definition in question.

"So, uh, Rei, what brought on your urge to pounce Shinji?" asked Misato, swiping a serviette across her left breast to mop up the juices from a piece of chicken.

"The Scenario has been altered and it is important that people should engage in mating behaviours and become one. Also he let himself be stuffed in a giant godmeat robot with no training for my sake." Rei licked teriyaki sauce off her fingers. "I find I now appreciate the taste of meat."

Kaji started to laugh and promptly doubled over in a coughing fit as a rogue piece of katsu tried to explore his airway. A few swift thumps on his back from Misato, and a glass of water, saw him right again. "So, Shinji, how does it feel to be a man?" the scoundrel finally asked when he could breathe properly again.

"Good," squeaked the reluctant pilot, trying to keep his gaze at or above everyone's eye level. He didn't want Rei to see him looking at Misato's tits. Or Kaji's lean, toned chest, for that matter.

"Enjoy it!" enthused Kaji. "Don't be embarrassed."

Misato leaned back in her chair and stretched. "So tell me, Shinji, were you careful or am I going to have to write a maternity leave policy for the pilot corps?"

"I have complete control of my fertility. Also that of anyone exposed to my manifested AT Field," interjected Rei. "I have no intention of conceiving until the Scenario is properly resolved."

"Uh, right. That's good to know." Misato glanced sideways at Kaji. " _Anyone?_ "

"Within certain limits which I have not yet explored."

* * *

"Maya, I..." Ritsuko closed her eyes, trying to work out a good way of saying what she had to say. "I... would very much like to... to date you. But..."

"Is there someone else, sempai?"

 _Oh, you know, just my terrible arsehole of a boss, who seems to be a bit less of an arsehole since I reamed his._ "I have a relationship of sorts with the Commander. I... don't want to abandon that, because..." _Go on, admit it, me. It's because I like being spunked in._

Ritsuko could swear she heard the clunk of Maya's heart sinking so hard it bounced off the floor. "I understand, sempai. It was foolish of me to—"

Ritsuko shook her head. The sad look on Maya's face was too much to bear. "Please hear me out. I... People are complex. They have many needs. Some of them can't all be fulfilled by the same person. Can we try to... arrange something?"

Maya blinked back tears. "Sempai? Are you suggesting a threesome?"

"No, no, I'm sure you don't want to sleep with _him_. It's just... he can't satisfy all of my needs one way, and you can't sat—"

Maya frowned. It might actually have been a more disheartening sight than her crying. "Stop. I don't want to share you with a man. Or another woman, really, but we might have been able to... explore that. I don't know. I'm sorry, sempai, but I'm not interested in whatever you were going to suggest. I'll see if the Professor can find you a new assistant."

* * *

Genetic material crossed a cell membrane.

* * *

Rei looked up from the remains of her meal. "That was pleasant. Shinji, once your food has settled, we should mate again. I would like you on top this time."

"Oh, Shiiiiinji, did you make your girlfriend do all the work for your first time?" asked Misato, waggling her eyebrows lasciviously. "You naughty boy. She should probably spank you for that."

"That line of argument is inconsistent, Captain, and I have no interest in spanking Shinji." Rei gestured towards Misato's room. "Please take Mr Kaji to your room and get fucked."

"I need a rest, Rei," interjected Kaji. "I don't recharge quite as fast as young Shinji here."

A psychedelic orange mandala of wings and eyes took shape in the air behind Rei, then plunged forward through the rogue's crotch, bringing his dick abruptly back to full mast. "Your refractory period has been adjusted. Thank me later, Captain."

The humans stared, trying to process what had just happened.

"Fertility is one of several reproductive biology traits I can adjust. Now, Shinji, shall we return to your room?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't do it to her.
> 
> Even in crack, I just couldn't make Maya willing to share with Gendo.
> 
> Being Ritsuko is suffering.


	7. The Morning After, or: Humans Don't Have a User Manual

Shinji woke up from what he could only assume was a strange and absurdly protracted wet dream, only to find himself in a sweaty naked tangle of limbs with the very bluenette he'd been dreaming about.

"Are you awake, Shinji?" she asked him, shimmying round to face him.

"Uh, yes, um," he mumbled, his brain still not quite able to accept this was anything other than a continuation of the dream.

"Good. It is Monday and we will be expected to attend school. My uniform is in the hideous slum your father made me live in. I will see you at school." She planted a quick kiss on his lips, then slipped out of the tangle before he could respond. "I will speak to Captain Katsuragi about letting me move in. A few things would need to be established."

"Things?"

"Chiefly an acceptance of casual indoor nudity as normal and healthy," she clarified, sliding open the bedroom door. "Now go take a shower. She and Mr Kaji have not yet woken up."

Shinji didn't even try to convince himself he was staring after Rei as she left for any other reason than liking her arse.

* * *

"Well, Dr Akagi, we've managed to remove the glass fragments from your knee, and your blood alcohol is low enough that you should be able to hobble in a straight line." The doctor glared at Ritsuko over the top of her reading glasses. "But really, what possessed you to drink that much alcohol from long-stemmed glasses? A shot glass would have just left you with a nasty bruise if you fell on it like that."

Ritsuko groaned. Her head hurt, her mouth tasted like a stale groin protector, and the hole in her knee was still throbbing, and now some medic was passing judgment on her drinking technique. "Look, it was what I had. Do I get crutches?"

"Yes, all urges to the contrary I will be signing off on you being able to get to the lab. I understand your work is important to us all." The doctor scribbled something on her notes. "Try not to injure yourself again."

* * *

"This puts me in an awkward position, Lieutenant," said Professor Fuyutsuki. "You are far and away the most suitable candidate from a skills perspective."

"I know, Professor, but I really don't think I can work with her right now." Maya shifted nervously under the Sub-Commander's gaze. "I don't want to make trouble."

He sighed. "Very well. Lieutenant Ooi, from the second shift, is probably the best alternative. I would have to ask the two of you to switch shifts on command centre duty. Given that we're unlikely to have an Angel attack this soon, you're relieved for the rest of the current shift. Please come back at 17:00."

"Thank you, sir." Maya forced a smile. "I'll do my best."

"I know you will, Lieutenant. Dismissed."

* * *

Rei was paying no more attention to the teacher than she ever did. However, today she actually had something to think about.

Mating with Shinji was very pleasant, particularly when she encouraged him to be vigorous when on top of her, but he was only human, and his stamina could not match hers. She needed to find a mutually agreeable strategy that would allow her to seek additional participants.

"`Class Representative, is there somewhere in the building where two students could have privacy for ten to fifteen minutes?`" she typed into the messaging application on her school laptop.

"`Do you need to talk to someone about something? Is it serious?`" came Horaki's reply a minute or two later.

"`I would like to mate with Shinji sooner than the late afternoon. I believe he would prefer privacy.`"

"Aida!" called out Horaki, springing to her feet and brandishing her ruler at the bespectacled boy who always associated with the muscularly uncouth Suzuhara. "Stop hacking Ayanami's chat account!"

"But they closed that security hole weeks ago, Class Rep!" he protested.

Rei cleared her throat. "Class Representative, that query genuinely was from me."

Horaki stared at Rei, mouth slowly opening and closing. "Sensei, I need to speak to Ayanami. May we be excused?"

"Eh?" The teacher squinted at her over his glasses. "Of course, Miss Horaki. Do your duty as needful."

"Come with me, Ayanami."

Rei followed the Class Representative out of the classroom and down the hall. "What do you mean, 'mate with Shinji'?" hissed Horaki.

"Exactly that, Horaki. I would rather not wait until after the end of the school day." Rei smiled. "Is this a breach of school policy?"

Horaki, cheeks blazing, stopped outside the vacant classroom that would have housed Class 2-D if there was one, and bundled Rei into it. "In there. We need to talk about this."

"All right," said Rei. "Is my request problematic?"

"What are you doing with Shinji?"

"We had sex yesterday. Several times. I was wondering if there was somewhere private he and I could go to have sex during, say, the lunch break."

Horaki's eyes glazed over in the manner of someone whose brain had just gone into tilt, and Rei hurriedly intercepted her before she could slump to the floor. "Fuckbiscuits," muttered Rei, lowering her into a chair. "Now I have to wake her up before someone comes looking for us and sees her like this."

She gently prodded at Horaki's AT Field with her own. "Tickles," mumbled the inert class rep.

"Is there somewhere meeting my request?"

"Mr Mishima's office is available. He's on sabbatical and nobody else wanted it. Top floor."

Rei gave Horaki's AT Field a shorter, sharper prod, dragging her back to awareness with a yelp. "Thank you, Class Representative. Have you ever used it for that purpose yourself?"

Horaki's cheeks flushed again, but she stayed out of tilt. "Uh, no, I haven't."

"Perhaps you should. Mating is very enjoyable."

"Ayanami! I always thought you were a good girl!"

"There is nothing wrong with enjoying mating. Shall we return to class?"

* * *

Shinji blinked as a message appeared on his laptop shortly after Rei and the class rep got back. "`Class Representative Horaki says we can mate in a vacant office on the top floor this lunchtime. Are you interested?`"

The sudden change in blood distribution made him fumble slightly as he started typing a reply, and a follow-up appeared before he was done. 

"`You look interested. I'm looking forward to you fucking me.`"

If Rei was going to make a habit of this, he thought, he was going to need looser trousers. He deleted his half-written reply and gave a much shorter one.

"`Yes.`"


	8. Standards of (Im)Propriety

Peter Langley frowned at Asuka as she swept into his office. "Liebchen, Papa has work to do. Especially after the Chairman's visit. That man is impossible."

Asuka pouted at her father. "I just want to know where Mr Kaji has vanished off to. He disappeared right before my eyes yesterday."

"Asuka, were you trying to seduce him again?" He sighed and shook his head. "We've talked about that already. Inspector Kaji is a completely unsuitable target for your affections, and honestly, if he _did_ take you up on the offer I'd have his balls chopped off."

A low growl escaped Asuka's throat. "Don't you dare! He's mine, and if anyone hurts him I'll step on them in Unit 02!"

"Given that it sounds like he broke the laws of physics to escape you, I think the claim that he's yours is a little tenuous."

 _Mustn't... kill... Papa...._ "He's just playing hard to get." Something sharp hit the back of her neck, and the world started to go blurry. "Tranq... darts... again... Papa?"

"Only the best for my Liebchen. Sleep well and dream of boys your own age."

The world went fuzzily black before she could manage a retort.

* * *

Curiosity had impelled Kensuke to tail Ikari and Ayanami out of the classroom. The sight of her associating with a boy was too strange to ignore.

The native caution of the illicit photographer had made him keep his distance as they headed... upstairs? That was odd. There was nothing up there except a couple of offices and the as-yet-unused third-year classrooms. He went upstairs after them and spotted one of the office doors standing ajar. He crept along the corridor, and heard... sounds.

Exciting sounds. Sounds he'd never expected to associate with Ayanami. He fished out his small pocket camera, loaded with one of his precious hand-reloaded 110-size cartridges, and slunk up to the doorway.

The gap was just wide enough for him to see Ikari's arse pumping back and forth. That was... more interesting than he wanted to admit to anyone, but nobody was going to pay for it.

Ayanami cried out, and Ikari came to a halt with a groan at the end of his very next stroke. Kensuke moved his thumb to the winder, ready to get whatever shot—

"Come in here, Aida," said Ayanami.

Panic froze rigid what blood flow hadn't already made rigid. How did she know he was there? She had to be facing away from the door or there'd have at least been a glimpse of her thighs. She couldn't possibly have seen him.

"Rei?" asked what was obviously Ikari's voice.

"He followed us up here. I need to have a word with him. Don't get dressed just yet, Shinji."

Kensuke couldn't shake off his fear. He wasn't even sure he wanted to. The door swung open, revealing Ayanami with her hair mussed and her uniform's ribbon loosened, standing between him and Ikari. She grabbed the front of Kensuke's shirt and pulled him into the room, pushing the door shut with her other hand.

"Rei, what are you doing?" asked Ikari.

"Kensuke enjoyed spying on us. What did you see, Kensuke?"

"N-n-nothing b-but Ikari's arse." He cursed himself inwardly. Why couldn't he keep his mouth shut?

"Are you attracted to both of us?" Ayanami gently cupped the bulge in Kensuke's trousers.

"Rei?" queried Ikari.

"Y-yes," choked out Kensuke despite his best efforts to stay silent.

"Shinji, how do you think he should repay us for the show?"

Ikari blinked, his gaze flicking back and forth between Kensuke and Ayanami. "Uh, do you mean..."

"I think he owes at least one of us an orgasm."

Kensuke's gaze flicked back and forth between his strangest classmate and his newest. This was going somewhere. He couldn't say for sure he didn't want it to.

Ikari nodded slowly. "I guess that makes sense."

Kensuke glanced down at the other boy's semi-on. His imagination was going places with the sight and he wasn't ready to follow it yet. "I... can I do something for you, Ayanami?"

Ayanami led him across to the desk, perching her arse on the edge and pulling up the front of her skirt. "Shinji came in me. Make me come with your tongue."

Kensuke wondered why he'd imagined that would get him out of tasting Ikari's cum. Maybe he'd hoped they'd used a condom, or something. He nodded and sank to his knees in front of her, letting her take his head in her hands and guide his mouth into position.

* * *

Hikari glared at Ikari and Ayanami as they returned, smiling and ever so slightly mussed, but held her tongue. They were late, but the teacher was, for whatever reason, even later, and besides, _she'd_ told Ayanami about a prospective trysting spot.

Aida, though, had _no_ excuse for returning to the classroom even later than them, with a shamefaced look about him. "Aida, what time do you call this?"

"Late. Sorry, Class Rep."

She sighed. "Go sit—" The teacher bumbled in, and drilled reflex kicked in. "Stand! Bow! Sit!"

What, she wondered, had Aida been up to? She'd heard furtive snatches of conversation now and then that made her suspicious of him, but it was particularly suspicious that he was even later than Ikari and Ayanami when Suzuhara had been remarkably prompt for once. Maybe there was something to her suspicions.

It could wait, though. She didn't really want—

She _shouldn't_ really want, she admitted to herself as she felt her cheeks warming, but that wasn't the same thing.


	9. Confusion

"`Captain. I would like to share living quarters with Shinji. My own quarters are unfit for occupation.`"

Misato frowned at the text she'd just received from Rei. She wasn't sure she wanted the pair living under her roof, but she certainly didn't want to leave them to their own devices in a separate apartment. "`maybe.`"

"`I anticipate that being able to mate with each other daily will raise pilot morale and increase our sync ratios. Also humans should strive to become one with others.`"

Misato pinched the bridge of her nose. "`school says u were late back from lunch.`"

"`We were mating in an disused office.`"

Oh for— "`u shouldnt do that`"

"`Our moods and attention spans in the afternoon were significantly enhanced by doing so. Now, about our accommodation.`"

"`ok fine u can move in where i can keep an eye on u`"

"`Clothing is unpleasant. I currently remain nude at home. My morale would be significantly impacted if I had to discontinue this practice.`"

"`wat do u mean`"

"`I want both habitual and occasional nudity to be permitted in any residence I inhabit.`"

Misato paused. On the one hand, _WTF?_ On the other, nobody had bothered putting clothes on for dinner last night, and it was... actually not that bad. Watching Shinji try and find a safe direction to look was amusing. Also she didn't want to annoy someone who could do weird magic bullshit to people's genitals. "`fine. u can go naked round the apt. no ridin his rocket in the lounge tho.`"

"`That is entirely reasonable. Shinji prefers to mate in private anyway. Thank you, Captain.`"

"`call me misato at home plz`"

* * *

As he stretched and flexed in the one surveillance blindspot in NERV Car Park 17 to loosen up stiff joints, Kaji idly wondered how, exactly, Misato had managed to cram him into her Alpine's forward trunk without breaking or dislocating anything. It wasn't the first, or even the second, physics violation to happen to him in the past year, though, so he shrugged it off as just one of those things and finished pulling on the wrong-sized fatigues she'd requisitioned for him.

They looked, as he expected, absolutely ridiculous. Without a belt he'd have needed to hold them up by hand. The phone she'd provided him with chimed, and he looked at the message.

"`just told rei ppl can b naked in the apt. u ok with that?`"

Well, that was interesting. "`Your house, your rules, Kacchan. I'm not complaining.`"

"`no fuckin in the lounge, tho.`"

Kaji snorted. "`Pretty sure your sofa would collapse if I tried to fuck you on it. Anyway, I'm going to go shopping for some clothes that actually fit.`"

"`did u just call me fat?`"

"`I called your sofa a piece of shit. Rei and Shinji could probably break it. Where did you even get it?`"

"`buy me a new 1 if u dont like it`"

Kaji chuckled to himself as he headed for the express elevator to the surface.

* * *

Shinji sighed with relief as he put away the last of the groceries. At least now they had some proper food in the apartment instead of just Misato's stash of beer, noodles, and hot sauce. As he stood up, he heard a whoop of delight from his bedroom, and Rei came bounding out – naked – a moment later.

"Rei? Did something happen?"

She grinned broadly at him. "I can move in with you! I don't have to wear clothes around the house!"

Shinji blinked, dazed by her literally and figuratively naked exuberance, but remained in the land of the sapient even as blood diverted to where it was likely to be needed in the very near future. "That's good."

"It's fantastic!" She took a deep breath and spoke more calmly. "You are also free to be nude. I would like you to use that freedom."

Shinji hesitated. "Um, can we talk about something first?"

"Certainly. Do you want to talk in private?"

"Yes," he replied.

She smiled, and walked back into the bedroom, providing a rear view just as nice as the front view. Shinji followed, trying very hard to keep his mind on topic even in the face of such delights. "So, uh, about... about what happened at lunchtime."

"Did it upset you?"

"Um, well, not exactly. I mean, the bit that was just us was great but the bit with the guy who'd spied on us was... uh, weird and confusing and, well, I..." He closed his eyes for a moment, his id helpfully replaying the sight of Rei talking their classmate through licking her out. It was very confusing. Hot, but confusing. "I... I wanted to be in his place. But also yours."

"The thought of watching someone kneel down and lick our fluids off your penis is very pleasant." Rei smiled. "Would he, in particular, suit you?"

Shinji hesitated, words tangling up again in his brain, and Rei leaned in to kiss his ear. "Perhaps we can explore this later. For now, I am feeling extremely compliant. Please take advantage of my state. And me."

"Uh, what do—"

"There is an obvious option," she said, rolling on to her back and spreading her legs to expose her glistening pussy.

* * *

Kensuke slammed his hand against the arcade machine. "Dammit!"

Touji looked at the scores, then back at Kensuke. "Hey, Ken, you feelin' okay? Ain't like you to screw up that bad."

Kensuke looked down at the controls. What was he supposed to say? _Oh, you know, I was spying on Ayanami and the new kid and she made me lick his cum out of her and..._ "Just... just got some stuff to deal with," he managed. He didn't want to bullshit his friend but he didn't want to talk about it, especially in public.

"Gotta get on top of that, man. I had to fob off three of your regulars at lunchtime. People gonna start lookin' for a new source of sweet pics."

Kensuke was suddenly acutely aware of the _reward_ Aya—no, _Rei_ , it was stupid calling a girl he'd been intimate with like that by her family name—had let him have. Rei posed for half a dozen shots after she'd _finished_ and there was no way he was going to sell any of them and he needed to get home and develop them as soon as he could even if it meant wasting half a roll of film on blanks or random outdoor snapshots.

He felt his friend's hand on his shoulder. It was... comforting. And confusing. "Hey, man, you really look bad. Maybe you oughta go home and get some shut-eye."

Kensuke let Touji hustle him out of the arcade, hoping nobody would see the semi starting to tent his trousers and jump to any conclusions. Especially since he wasn't sure they'd be wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hello to my id.


	10. The Wheels Begin to Turn

"`Dr Akagi, is it possible to prepare a school swimsuit in plugsuit material? Also, can you please tell the school through official channels this morning that I can no longer wear conventional swimwear for dermatological reasons?`

Ritsuko looked at the message on her phone and raised an eyebrow. The first request was out of the ordinary but perfectly feasible. The second needed... clarification. She was fairly sure Rei didn't have a skin condition. "`I can have one ready for you by next week. What do you mean by dermatological reasons?`"

"`Having cloth that is not plugsuit material pressed closely against my breasts and genitals for more than a few minutes makes my skin crawl.`"

 _Note to self: Don't ask the sex toy fairy questions you don't need answers to._ "`Why did you never complain before?`"

"`Because I was volitionally impaired due to an abusive upbringing intended to condition me to be the linchpin of the apocalypse in violation of my basal imperatives. Your thoughtlessness is unbecoming, Doctor, and it makes me feel both better and worse about having accidentally neutralized your contraceptive implant with my AT Field while enhancing your vaginal elasticity.`"

Ritsuko managed to stop her fingers from going three for three on the stupid questions. "`I'll get in touch with the school.`"

"`Thank you. I will see you this evening to discuss things in person.`"

Ritsuko leaned back in her chair, rubbing her arm. First things first, avoid pissing Rei off any further. She keyed in the school nurse's office number.

"Tokyo-3 Middle School, nurse's office."

"Hello. This is Dr Ritsuko Akagi at NERV. For dermatological reasons, we're going to have to ask for Ayanami to be excused from swimming sessions until we can provide her with customized swimwear."

"Dermatological reasons?"

"Suffice it to say that the condition is fully under control and she didn't, doesn't, and won't pose an infection hazard. This is purely about ensuring her welfare."

"Understood, Dr Akagi. I'll notify Miss Kurosawa immediately."

"Excellent. Have a good day." She ended the call and set down the phone. That was the easy bit. Now she needed to deal with... whatever Rei had done to her implant.

* * *

As he sat and ignored the teacher's droning monologue about rice prices in immediate post-Second Impact Japan, Kensuke wanted to be somewhere else.

That was nothing new, of course, but his libido was helpfully providing some very _precise_ notions of what would be happening somewhere else than before. There were gaps in some of the details, but that didn't make it any less distractingly pleasant-but-confusing.

He looked across at Rei. She was typing a message to some—

A message from her popped up on his laptop. "`Shinji says he is willing to have you join us again. Are you available this lunchtime?`"

He glanced sidelong at Touji and frowned. "`Got to do stuff with Touji. He was pissed off with me not being around yesterday. What about after school?`"

"`I have an important appointment, unfortunately. I must ask, does your activity with Touji involve exchange of bodily fluids?`"

"`No.`" He glanced at his friend again. Now that the question had been asked, his libido was making suggestions it had never made before.

"`That is convenient but disappointing.`"

"`What?`"

"`I would rather explain in person.`"

The bell rang for lunch.

* * *

As the clock ticked ever so slowly from 16:00 to 17:00, Satsuki Ooi stood in front of the coffee machine opposite Dr Akagi's office, wondering which of the available options would be least unpalatable and why she had had to draw the short straw and work with Dr Akagi. Did the Subcommander have some kind of "two bottle blondes is better than one" fetish? She wasn't even supposed to be in this branch of the franchise anyway.

The clatter of a falling vent grille interrupted her ruminations. Her hand flew to her service pistol, drawing it as she turned to face the intruder.

Of all the things she discovered today, "Ayanami is an authentic bluenette" was not one she would ever have expected.

Neither was "Ayanami can literally disarm me at ten paces with her soul".

Her empty sleeves, soaked in orange goop, flopped stickily back and forth as she wiggled her torso. "Can I have my limbs back, please? It's hard to do any work without them."

The naked demigoddess smiled and restored her limbs with another wave of her soul. "You are taking this very well. I apologize for instinctively reacting to your firearm."

"I'm from a spinoff. I had my breakdown the moment I got here." Satsuki grinned. "So why are you down here right now?"

"Where is Lieutenant Ibuki? I was expecting to see her here."

"She got reassigned to my old shift. Some kind of personality conflict with Dr Akagi. I'm betting she found out sempai likes dick too much to give it up."

"Fuckbiscuits. I really do need a word with Akagi, don't I?"


	11. Comparative Advantage

Rei swept into Dr Akagi's office with her AT Field half-unfurled. "I hear things went badly with Lieutenant Ibuki," she said.

The scientist looked up from her notes and snorted. "Just a little. Whatever made you think it was a good idea?"

"The hope that you would choose a decent human being over the man who raised me to help him end the world." Rei shrugged. "Still, I do need your cooperation. Let's discuss what we want from each other. You can go first."

"I want you to unfuck my contraception and make sure I don't get pregnant from the failure. What were you even trying to do, anyway?"

"A fair request. As I said, I was enhancing your vaginal elasticity."

"If I was into fisting or wanted to have children, that might actually be useful, but honestly, I wasn't planning on having anything larger than Gendo's dick in my cunt, no matter which way it's going."

"Are you implying you would be content to be permanently infertile?"

"I'd have had my tubes done years ago if the Diet hadn't been taken over by authoritarian natalists."

"Very well. What I want is for you to apologize for helping Commander Ikari's bizarre scheme to melt humanity into orange fucking goo so he can see his wife again, and for you to help _my_ bizarre scheme to save humanity and expand beyond this planet."

"Why are you calling your own scheme 'bizarre'?"

"Because by human cultural norms several of my non-negotiable goals are precisely that. I can assure you it involves infinitely less genocide against humans than Commander Ikari's scenario." Rei started adjusting her AT Field into a pattern that would do what Dr Akagi wanted. The details were going to be... fiddly. "Are you on board?"

Dr Akagi took a deep breath. "Very well, Ayanami. I am sorry that I helped Gendou with his bizarre scheme, and... I think I can trust your scheme to be better than anything anyone else is likely to suggest. Count me in."

That, Rei decided, was good enough. She closed the door and tapped the locking switch. "Very well. To do this in a way that avoids a final episode of painful and messy endometrial shedding and prevents menopausal symptoms will take some time and will be much easier if you are entirely nude. I have locked the door to prevent intrusions while we're busy."

Dr Akagi stared back at her. "You're completely serious, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Very well." Dr Akagi started unbuttoning her lab coat. "Is this going to be worse or better than a gynae exam?"

"It involves neither stirrups nor insertion of room temperature metal."

* * *

Listless and groggy, Asuka sat on the sofa and leafed half-heartedly through one of the volumes in her father's Taschen collection, trying to find some inspiration to do _anything_ except stare at art nudes and strip club back-stage candids.

He'd obviously changed the formula in the darts. She never used to feel like this when she woke up. Normally she'd at least have some kind of opinion about the flesh displayed on the printed page in front of her.

Her cellphone started ringing. She ignored it. Kaji never called her, no matter how many times she gave him her number, and she didn't want to talk to anyone else.

A few minutes later, the sound of the front door opening intruded briefly on her consciousness. She yawned and looked across at the bookcase. She'd have to get up to put away the book, and that was more effort than it was worth. Who cared if she was looking at pictures of naked people? It wasn't like it was some tacky magazine.

"Ah, Asuka, you're up! That's good. We have a new candidate pilot, and I thought I'd introduce him to you, since he'll be joining you once his Evangelion is completed."

Asuka looked up to see her father, accompanied by a creepy grey-haired prettyboy with red eyes that seemed to glow ever so faintly. "Thought he wasn't due until the last couple of episodes," she muttered.

"You're quite right," said the prettyboy, bowing extravagantly, "but there seems to have been some confusion about scheduling since Chairman Kiel decided that he is the Emperor and he wants dumplings."

"Whatever. Don't care. I wanna see Kaji."

"Liebchen, you wouldn't be an appealing sight for him right now even if he _was_ interested," replied her father. "Now, let's get the introductions out of the way. Asuka, this is Kaworu Nagisa, the new pilot candidate. Kaworu, this is my daughter, Asuka Langley Souryuu."

Asuka frowned. "Why you introducing me to boys, Papa? You know I only want Kaji."

Kaworu grinned at her. "Fair lady, I fear Kaji has no interest in penetrating you. While I can't state any certainties, it is likely he has re-established sexual contact with Captain Katsuragi in Tokyo-3."

"Stop it! You're lying!"

"Inspector Kaji recreationally mated with six members of NERV Berlin staff in the past year. Some of them more than once. He is quite happy to mate with women he actually—"

She hurled the book at him. It stopped in mid-air, blocked by a wall of orange light, and dropped to the floor with a thud.

"Liebchen, don't mistreat my books. And go change into actual clothes instead of your pyjamas. It's nearly lunchtime."


	12. Sleep Quality is Important

Ritsuko groaned groggily. Someone was shaking her shoulder. She could feel their hand on her skin. "Doctor Akagi? Time to wake up."

Facts intersected in Ritsuko's brain, and with a yelp she recoiled from whoever had accosted her, nearly falling out of her chair in the process. "Gah! Maya? Is that you?"

"Your adorkable lesbian kohai doesn't want to talk to you any more, remember?"

Ritsuko blinked blearily at the woman in front of her. Tallish, bleached-blonde hair, not Maya... "Lieutenant... Ooi, is it?"

"You remembered! I'm touched." Lt Ooi stepped away from Ritsuko and headed for her own desk. "We're getting a 'Pattern Green' in the Eva cages and the MAGI are saying you should have dealt with it two days ago."

Ritsuko stood up against the protests of muscles annoyed with her sleeping in her chair. Steadying herself against the desk with one hand, she reached for her lab coat. Putting anything else on seemed like a waste of time. "That again? All we managed to do was fry an active scanner."

"Well, the MAGI still say you should have dealt with it."

Ritsuko let go of the desk and pulled on her lab coat. "Fine, fine." She stooped down to pull her shoes on. "Let me get some coffee and have a smoke first."

* * *

Mari was having her morning sulk when she noticed two women, both with bleach-blonde hair, entering the cage. She recognized the first from the previous visit, but the other was new. And probably not quite as cute as the dark-haired one from last time, though it was hard to tell behind the enormous visor-goggles-whatever she was wearing.

"Switching to passive spectrum one," said the one in the visor, turning a switch on its side. "Can't see... ah, wait. Boosting central gain. There's a.... girl? With glasses and tsundere twintails."

"Oi! I'm not a fucking tsundere!" shouted Mari, flipping her the bird. "I'm always really obvious about fancying people. You must be thinking of Princess!"

"It looks like she's saying something and giving us the finger. Do we have a ghost microphone to go with the ghost goggles?" asked Visor Lady.

"Already recording in batch mode. It doesn't do real time playback unless we hook it up to the MAGI," replied Labcoat.

"Batch mode, huh? Look, when you listen to this, can you fix me up with a body? I know you've got all those spare jump clones of Blueberry, and cross my heart and hope to die for the millionth time and get reincarnated as a dust mite after a thousand years in the Hell of Upside-Down Sinners, I promise not to sexually harass anyone with it." Mari paused for what would have been breath if she had lungs. "And tell Commander Chinstrap he should fucking shave."

"Well, she certainly said a lot just then," observed Visor Lady. "Is there anything else we can do for now?"

"Stantz and Venkman probably died in Second Impact, so no, I think we're done here," replied Labcoat. "Let's go. We need to start planning a sync test schedule for Ikari and Rei."

"Rei?"

"Er, I mean Pilot Ayanami."

Mari wondered, as they left, why Labcoat was calling Puppy by his family name and Blueberry by her personal name.

* * *

Shinji was conflicted.

On the one hand, having Rei's head resting in his lap as he ate his lunch outside was very nice, even if a certain corner of his mind had other ideas about what her head being in his lap should involve, which were in danger of making his lap a less comfortable place to be.

On the other, he was quite worried about how tired she seemed and the fact she wasn't making any attempt to eat her own lunch.

He brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. "Rei, are you all right?"

"Huh? Wha'?" Her eyelids fluttered open. "Sleeeepy. Sterilizing Ritsuko right was hard work."

"Shouldn't you eat your lunch?"

"Mmmm. Guess so." She grabbed the edge of the table and hauled herself upright, then almost slumped face-first into her bento. "Oog. Too tired."

"Do you want some tea or coffee?"

"Uff. Maybe." Rei poked herself with a chopstick and started picking at her lunch. "Wanna mate. Too tired to mate."

"What time did you get to bed last night? You didn't say this morning."

"Two? Three? Tired after sterilizing Ritsuko. Got lost in vents on way home." Rei yawned loudly. "Remind me. Don't use vents tired. No signs."

"Ritsuko?"

"Doctor Akagi. The one who didn't care I was living in a slum." Rei stabbed her lunch for emphasis, splintering the chopstick. "Fuckbiscuits. Now I have bamboo splinters in my lunch." She giggled weakly. "No good deed goes unpunished."

Shinji frowned. "Rei, I think maybe you should go home and get some sleep."

"Come with me? Too tired to mate but still want naked Shinji cuddles."

Shinji looked at his bleary and dazed lover / comrade in arms and nodded vigorously. She was clearly in no fit state to go home alone. "Sure. Let's just tell a teacher first."

"'kay. Gonna tell them about naked cuddles or just that we're going home?"

A shudder ran down his spine. "Just that we're going home."

"'kay."

* * *

Ritsuko looked at the transcript of the recording from the Eva cage and sighed. Technically, approving the girl's main request was in the Commander's bailiwick, but she knew that Rei wouldn't be happy if she wasn't given the final decision.

The part about sexual harassment was a little worrying, too. Especially the girl's lengthy and lurid oath to restrain herself.

The part about Gendou's beard, on the other hand, she'd quite cheerfully pass on as her own idea. It _was_ kind of shit, especially given he clearly had enough Ainu in him for a sensible beard to be an option.

She stashed the transcript in a lockable drawer as her stomach rumbled, reminding her she really, really needed some lunch. "Lieutenant, could you just excuse me for a moment? I need to get properly dressed so I can get lunch."

"Do you want me to get you something?"

"No, I'll go myself. I want a _lot_ of lunch."


	13. Principles of Hierarchy

Gendou Ikari was not the man he used to be.

Somehow, since Ritsuko had pegged him across his desk to recover his brain from the smouldering wreckage of his Scenario, he found himself wanting to connect with other humans, and not just as a side effect of melting them all into orange goop so he could see Yui again.

So it was that the titular supreme authority in NERV-Japan walked into one of the staff cafeterias with his entirely unnecessary and gratuitously weird eyeglasses tucked safely away in his pocket, whistling a tune under his breath. _Daa-n da-da da daa-da da da-da-da_

The elder and more directly physical of the two causes of his change of heart had just set down a heavily laden tray, and she blinked as she saw him. He smiled at her, hoping it didn't look too forced, and headed towards the counter.

The menu on offer was, he realized, somewhat uninspiring. While sweating under the lights would guarantee the food was never _great_ , he was sure that better results were possible. He'd have to talk to Fuyutsuki about that.

With something resembling a sensible lunch on his tray, he made a beeline for Ritsuko's table. "Good afternoon," he said, setting his lunch down and settling into the seat opposite.

"Gen—" She stopped and shook her head. "Commander. What brings you down here?"

"Lunch," he replied, waving a hand at his tray. "The menu could use some work. And I like it when you use my name."

"People will talk."

"Let them, Ritsuko-sama."

She nearly choked on a piece of tonkatsu. "What did you just call me?"

"Ritsuko-sama. It seemed like the right honorfic for the beautiful woman who bent me over my desk." He paused, taking in her stunned expression and the sudden silence of everyone else in the cafeteria. _I should probably lower my voice when saying things like that,_ he reflected inwardly.

"I suppose it does, Gendou-kun." Her deadpan look was perfect.

"Has anything of import happened?" he asked, once the normal hubbub of the cafeteria resumed.

"Rei is sleeping with your son. And has apparently talked Misato into making the apartment clothing-optional."

Gendou rolled this thought over in his mind, trying to find a suitable response. He settled on a practical one. "Are they using protection?"

"I don't think you need to worry about any unplanned pregnancies in your pilot corps. Or your science team."

"Good to know." He reached for the bag of wasabi peas he'd picked up at the counter.

She lowered her voice further, making him strain to hear. "If you go anywhere near my cunt after eating those, I will squirt habanero sauce up your urethra in your sleep."

Regretfully, he set the unopened bag of spicy snacks back down on his tray. "Understood, Ritsuko-sama."

"The other thing you should know is that we have a ghost in the Evangelion cages and she wants to be decanted into one of Rei's clones."

"Does Rei have an opinion about this?"

"I'll call her later and ask."

* * *

Much refreshed from her afternoon nap, Rei sat up in the futon and stretched. For a moment she was disappointed that there was no nude Shinji waiting to mate with her, but the delicious smell diffusing through from the kitchen made her stomach rumble and eliminated any prospect of her complaining about his absence.

She climbed out of the futon, her thighs sticking together slightly as she moved, and she paused at the bedroom door to ponder what, as far as she could remember, was her very first dream of any kind. It had been very pleasant indeed, and she would have to talk with Shinji about it afterwards. It offered _insights_ she could share about what she wanted from him.

She walked out into the living area, smiling at the sight of him wearing nothing but an apron as he busied himself with the task of preparing dinner. Reluctantly suppressing the urge to initiate mating with him, she pulled out one of the dining chairs and sat down. "Good evening, Shinji," she said.

"Oh, good evening, Rei. Are you feeling better?" Her libido was slightly disappointed that he didn't even look over his shoulder as he greeted her turn, but her stomach was glad of it. She didn't want a burned dinner or a scalded boyfriend, and besides, she liked looking at his arse.

"Yes, thank you. After dinner, I would like to talk to you about mating. And then I would like you to mate with me."

"Uh, of course!" His movements got a little less precise, and Rei felt very proud of herself for not putting her hand between her legs the instant she imagined where his blood had likely just gone.

The doorbell rang, and Shinji looked towards the front hall. Before he could say anything, Rei rose from her seat. "I'll get it. If it's a cold caller I shall offer them sexual insults for disturbing us."

As Shinji stammered incoherently, Rei walked through to the front door and opened it, poised to project her AT Field defensively if it was a would-be assassin or kidnapper.

"Hello, Ayanami, I'm—" Halfway through the sentence, the freckled and pigtailed class rep froze, barely even blinking, and once more Rei found herself hurriedly moving to prevent Hikari Horaki from collapsing to the floor.

"Fuckbiscuits." Rei gently lowered the brain-tilted girl onto the hall floor, propping her up against the wall. "Shinji! I regret to say we might need to put some clothes on. I suspect it will be impossible to get Horaki's brain out of tilt while we are nude."

"Horaki? The class rep? Why is she here?"

"Once we are in a state of dress that won't crash her brain, we can ask her."

* * *

Hikari blinked dazedly as she found herself sitting in an unfamiliar kitchen, looking into Ayanami's faintly glowing red eyes. A nervous downward glance told her that Ayanami was at least vaguely decent now, even if she hadn't bothered to button her uniform's blouse, and after a moment's hesitation she remembered why she was here in the first place.

"Are you feeling better, Ayanami? I came round with this afternoon's work because Nakamura-sensei set us some overnight reading for a test tomorrow. Otherwise I'd have left it until morning."

Ayanami smiled. "Thank you. I apologize for thoughtlessly answering the door while Shinji and I were both nude."

Somehow, the faint glow in Ayanami's eyes was enough to take the edge off that statment, but it still left Hikari fumbling for the right words. "Uh, that's, um, well, I guess you are, well, doing this and that with Ikari so I suppose being nude around each other when it's just the two of you is just part of that or something."

"Clothing is unpleasant, so I prevailed upon Captain Katsuragi to allow a fully clothing-optional household when I moved in. I believe I have successfully encouraged Shinji to embrace the arrangement." The glow in Ayanami's eyes faded. "Thank you again for bringing the work here."

"Is she feeling better now, Rei?" asked Ikari as he walked into the living area, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans.

"I'm fine!" said Hikari. Unwan— well, unrequested, anyway, images of what Ikari might look like under those clothes were creeping into her mind, and she hurriedly dipped her gaze and started rummaging in her bag. If she handed over the work quickly she could get out of here quickly. "Let me just get that work out for you and then I can leave you in peace so you can do whatever it is that—"

"We're about to have dinner," supplied Ikari. "I made enough for four but Misato called to say she and Mr Kaji are working late, so if you'd like to stay and eat you're welcome to."

That unhelpful corner of her brain started providing mental images of what else she might be welcome to stay and do and it was completely inappropriate and she should go home and leave them to it. "No, it's quite all right, I have to get back home because my big sister is working late too, so I have to make dinner for my little sister."

* * *

Misato had not been entirely honest with her charges.

She was certainly at her desk, and she was even making a token effort to do something relevant, but it was difficult to concentrate on work when she had her skirt pushed up past her hips and Kaji's head clamped between her thighs. 

It would take her several days to realize that, having had the purchase order system open as Kaji's tongue tipped her over the edge, she'd ordered three hundred and sixty-nine barrels of uncured plugsuit fabrication gel from NERV-Jakarta instead of the three Ritsuko had asked for.


	14. Lock the Target

Shinji broke the post-prandial silence. "You said you wanted to talk about mating?"

"Yes. I had an erotic dream this afternoon." Rei smiled at him. "It involved you. Would you like to hear about it?"

Shinji's second brain did the talking. "Yes!"

"You were very direct when telling me what you wanted, and your manner suggested you expected me to agree." She smiled. "It was a very pleasant experience."

Shinji blinked, trying to process Rei's statement. "Uh, what do you mean exactly?"

With an exasperated sigh, Rei climbed astride him, sandwiching his erection against his body. "I suppose I need to be clearer," she said as her juices slowly leaked onto his shaft. "You came up behind me and started fondling my breasts and pussy without saying anything first. Once I reached orgasm, you told me to get on my knees, suck your cock, and swallow."

Shinji gulped nervously. This was not quite what he'd expected to hear. "So you... you liked me just walking up and... touching you like that?"

"Yes. Though in reality I would only like it in contexts where I could be certain it was you." She ran her hands over his chest, her eyes faintly aglow. "How do you feel about telling me to do things?"

He licked his lips and plucked up the courage to grab her breasts before replying. "I feel... excited," he admitted, daring to grind upward against her pussy as he squeezed her nipples.

She closed her eyes for a moment. "So I... feel. I'd like to hear you tell me to do something."

"I would— I _want_ you to..." Shinji hesitated. He could think of several things to say and it was hard to choose. Actions. Positions. He needed to make his mind up. She said she wanted him to say it. "I want you to..." The courage wasn't quite there to be blunt. "... to do it with me. Like this, but... inside."

"Do you want me to ride your cock?" She ground against him.

"Yes."

"When you tell me to, I will do as I'm told."

That little extra push worked. The words came out faster than he intended but he didn't care. He needed to get them out. She wanted him to get them out. "Rei, ride my cock."

"Of course," she replied as she raised her hips, freeing his cock. Guiding it with her hand, she lowered herself slowly back onto him. Groans escaped both their throats as her pussy engulfed his cock, and he barely managed to stop himself coming on the spot.

"Rei, I... I'm going to..."

"Yes," she replied, pausing for a moment at the end of her downstroke, letting him savour the feeling of her pussy squeezing him. "I want you to. It's why—"

He could tell she was saying more, but his first brain gave up on processing words as she rode him over the edge.

When he could think again, she was still straddling him even as his softening cock slipped out of her. She leaned down and kissed him, her tongue lengthening to dip deep into his mouth. "I would like you to make me come, Shinji. I would like you to decide how."

He smiled up at her, fighting down the wave of post-orgasmic sleepiness. "If you lie back I can lick you." There was something about tasting his spunk when he licked her. That salty, slightly bitter gaminess felt right. It gave the whole experience more reality. It meant he hadn't just imagined fucking her.

"Please tell me to."

He nodded. It was getting a little easier. He was saying it because she wanted him to. "Rei, lie back and... and let me lick you."

She moved off him so fast the motion barely registered. One moment she was astride him, mingled juices seeping out of her pussy onto him; the next, she was on her back, legs open so he could get between them to lick.

Their phones started sounding an alarm klaxon in perfect unison.

"Fucking fuckbiscuitty motherfucking Angel motherfucker," snarled Rei, springing out of the futon to silence the alarm. "Come on, I'll take you through the vents. Leave your clothes."

"What?" asked Shinji as she hoiked him to his feet.

"Fucking Angel alarm! Ritsuko should have a plugsuit ready for you by now. There's a vent stack across the street, we can streak it."

There was something murderously violent about the glow in Rei's eyes, and he offered no protest as she dragged him out of the apartment with insane haste. 

When they finally came to a halt after a mad whirl of hot tarmac, screeching brakes, civil defence sirens, and metal ductwork, he found himself standing starkers somewhere in the Geofront with Dr Akagi raising an eyebrow at his state. "Your dedication to duty is impressive, Rei, but you could at least have let him grab his boxers."

"The sooner we kill this fucking Angel of Cockblocking the sooner we can go back to bed."

"That's not the official—" Dr Akagi looked down at the printout in her hand and facepalmed. "Oh, fuck me. Seriously? Okay, you two, the locker room's over there and your plugsuits are laid out ready for you."

* * *

As his advisor wittered frantically about something unimportant happening in Japan, Lorenz Kiel munched freshly cooked apricot dumplings and reflected on how Ferdinand I had definitely had the right idea.

* * *

"Why are we sharing a locker room? Shouldn't we have separate male and female locker rooms?"

"Fucking hell, Shinji, are you really complaining about sharing a locker room with the girl you're fucking?" asked Rei as she pressed something on her wrist and the loosely hanging fabric of her suit vac-formed itself to her curves. "I mean, seriously?"

"Isn't another pilot supposed to turn up some time? The one Kaji's running away from? She won't want to share with me, right?" Shinji matched Rei's gesture and yelped as only the integral box and modesty insert stopped the fabric from vac-forming itself to the creases of his ballsack.

"If and when they ship her here, Ritsuko can give her a private room or install screens or something if for some reason the Second doesn't want to see your penis every time we fight an Angel."

* * *

Asuka's morning session of masturbating to the memory of Kaji's glorious dick was rudely interrupted by a violent sneeze that made her pelvic floor muscles clench in a painful and thoroughly unsexy way, proving the reach of the Angel's thematic powers to be far greater than its immediate vicinity.

* * *

"Synchro start!"

_can't breathe_

Rei felt herself connecting to the fragmentary echo of herself Gendou had stuffed into Unit 00.

_hurts_

This time, she was ready.

_let me go auntie Naoko_

"Hey, dead me, if you play nice we can kill the shit out of an Angel and eat its guts."

_what's an Angel_

"It's something even nastier than auntie Naoko. It wants to ruin my fun and kill everyone."

_okay but do we get to hurt auntie Naoko_

"Auntie Naoko's dead."

_yay she was mean to me all the time_

"I know, dead me."

"Synchronization stable at... 78%," announced Ritsuko. "Well done, Rei!"

_who's that lady she sounds kinda like auntie Naoko_

"That's our cousin Ritsuko."

"Rei, who are you talking to?" Ritsuko sounded worried.

"The dead me inside the Eva."

"Right. Okay."


	15. Shamshel

Sitting in a corner seat in a civil defence shelter, Kensuke looked at the security cameras, then at the nearby vent grille, and started to form a plan. There was an Angel outside, and he wanted to _see_ it.

* * *

A long, flattish shape, somehow inspiring thoughts of a steamrolled penis if you didn't notice the rib-like legs wiggling beneath it, drifted slowly westward through the air above the Kanto Shallows. Orange hexagons flashed in the air around it as the JSSDF wasted artillery shells and air-to-ground missiles against its defences.

Drifting past high water mark and over dry land, it began to retaliate. Two tendrils of magenta light lashed out from the base of the bell-end, slicing effortlessly through a tank squadron and cooking off fuel and ammunition. The barrage of explosives intensified, and the approaching Angel diverted from its course to start seeking out its attackers.

In the NERV command centre, Misato watched the tactical display, cursing the attacker's timing even as the tactical icons for JSSDF units turned red then winked out entirely. Even a minute either way would have been fine; as it was, her eyes stung from opening them in front of Kaji at just the wrong moment. "Agano, have we got a visual on that thing yet?"

"Confirmed," replied the burgundy-haired lieutenant, tapping a button on her console. "It appears to be self-illuminating," she added as the camera drone feed popped up on screen.

 _So not only is it called the Angel of Cockblocking, it looks like a giant cock?_ Misato sighed. _Focus._ "Ibuki, do we have energy readings on those whips?"

Lieutenant Ibuki nodded. "Yes, ma'am. The intensity at the edges is enough to cut through tank armour. The MAGI are confused by its behaviour, though. They weren't expecting it to actively hunt the SDF."

"Mogami, set the launch route to the second ring, on the closest bearing to the Angel."

"Yes ma'am." Lieutenant Mogami tapped the command into her console. "Launch now, or hold?"

"Launch. Let's hope Shinji gets used to things before the Angel comes our way."

* * *

"Carriage locks disengaged," announced a woman's voice as the sympathetic pressure on Shinji's shoulders disappeared. "Pilot Ikari, you're free to move. Get a feel for the controls and await further orders."

Shinji thought back to his first sortie. The memory wasn't much help; it mostly consisted of falling flat on his face. "R-right. So to walk I... concentrate on walking."

A communications window popped up in his field of view, showing Rei's face. "Use the controls to assist. Push them forward from the rest position as you concentrate on walking. Try to keep your movements smooth."

"Smooth movements." Shinji took a deep breath and pushed the control grips forward like Rei suggested. _Walk._ Unit 01 took one step, then another, and Shinji allowed himself a grin. He'd done it. He was moving without landing on his face.

Unit 00 moved up alongside him, and Rei gave him more instructions over the commlink. "The ring-finger button on the right grip will open the compartment in your right shoulder pylon. That's where the progressive knife is stored. Squeeze the button and think about drawing the knife."

Following the instruction mid-stride, Shinji forgot to keep enough focus on walking, and Unit 01 pitched forward. A panicked forward thrust with the left grip sent a titanic hand reaching out to break the fall... and two cars parked just outside where one of the city's retractable skyscrapers would normally stand. His cheeks burned a little as he coaxed Unit 01 back to its feet and drew the knife from its compartment.

"The Angel is turning your way," announced Misato. "Prepare to engage."

"How do I use the knife?" asked Shinji.

"Same way you do everything else," replied Rei. "Concentrate on stabbing the motherfucker. Let's nail its core quickly so we can eat, go home, and fuck."

Popping a boner while wearing a tightly secured box, Shinji abruptly realized, was not a pleasant experience.

* * *

"Aida, what are you doing?"

With his head and shoulders already inside the vent, Kensuke froze in his tracks. _Horaki? I didn't know she lived round our way!_ He tried to ignore her and crawl further in, only to feel feminine hands seizing the waist of his trousers and pull.

Fortunately for both of them, he was wearing a good quality belt, properly buckled, and so he found himself extracted from the vent without incident or indecency, beyond the discomfort of the buckle digging into his midriff.

"I asked you a question," said Horaki as she stood up. "Why were you tampering with the vents?"

As he got to his feet, he managed to scrape together, if not a full-blown spine, at least a few vertebrae. "It's not school hours, mind your own business."

She kept her voice low. He didn't know she could do that. "If you tell me and promise not to do it again, I won't call the security guard. Being hauled before the youth court would be bad for your education."

"I... I wanted to see the Angel," he admitted.

"And?"

"And I promise not to do it again." Kensuke blinked as he finished grudgingly offering his word. There was a _look_ in Horaki's eyes, a bit like the one he'd seen on Rei's before _that_ , and a little too much red in her cheeks. "Are you enjoying this?"

"A-absolutely not!" she denied, a little too vehemently, as she brushed non-existent dust off the front of her skirt.

He wasn't convinced, but he had the wit to know when he was beaten. Even if he told someone, who would believe his very proper class rep was getting turned on by bossing him around?

One day, he told himself, a girl would take an interest in him and he'd be able to tell people about it.

* * *

Starbursts of pain blossomed in Shinji's chests as the dick-Angel's energy whips punched through Unit 01's torso, leaving instantly cauterized wound trails before erupting through the housing the umbilical cable connected to. Gasping with shock, Shinji somehow managed to gather his wits and slash theough one of the whips with Unit 01's progressive knife.

Purple light exploded out of the severed member, and the Angel gave a shrill screech of pain that rose another octave when Rei joined in, Unit 00's knife skating across the surface of the core and plunging into the Angel's flesh. Before the Angel could gather itself for another attack, Shinji grabbed the undamaged whip, hissing sharply as the energy field burned Unit 01's palm, and yanked hard.

The Angel toppled end over end, bowling over Unit 01 and finishing flat on its back. Before it could recover, Rei pounced, wrenching her knife free and driving it squarely into the core. The Angel twitched one final time, a bar of purple light erupting from the fractured core and narrowly missing Unit 00's head, and fell still.

"Dinnertime!" cried Rei with delight as Unit 00 buried its face in the Angel and started to chew. "You should try some too, Shinji."

* * *

"Chairman, the First Child has incited the Third to join her in defiling the Evangelions by feasting on the flesh of Angels."

Contented and full of apricot dumplings, Lorenz Kiel actually listened, however reluctantly, to what he was being told. "Do the Scrolls preclude such a possibility?" he asked. "Remember, much is unclear, and we already know this Angel is early according to the original schedule."

"The First is not supposed to exhibit animalistic appetites. That was very clear!"

"And yet, we are reliably informed that she shows great enthusiasm for rutting with the Third. Keep your focus on the essentials and we can still succeed." The Chairman belched. "Now, be about your duties. You have better things to do with your time than waste mine. And convey my compliments to the chef. These dumplings were fit for an Emperor."

* * *

Metal. Salt. Amines.

... Strawberries?

As the sated Evas raised their heads and howled, Rei was forced to admit a great truth:

Angels taste funny.


	16. Mars Envy

With one towel round her body and another around her magnificent mane of fiery hair, Asuka emerged from the bathroom just in time to see her father coming up the stairs. 

Carrying a parcel.

"Good morning, Papa," she said, nerves jangling. The parcel looked big enough.

"This arrived while you were in the shower, Liebchen," he said, smiling. "I know _I_ didn't order anything from Beate Uhse, but it seems somebody did, and used my card for it. Even paid for next-day delivery."

Asuka's gaze darted about. She didn't want to be having this conversation. Stupid delivery man, turning up when she was in the shower so Papa answered the door and ruined everything. "Papa, I..."

"It's all right, Liebchen. We'll just have a little talk about honesty, and then you can go to your room and enjoy your new purchase. I won't even ask you what it is. Fathers have to accept that their daughters have secrets."

Asuka gulped. "I'm sorry Papa. I promise I won't order anything else on your card without asking first."

"Well, then, I suppose that satisfies the 'little talk'. You know what you did wrong and you're not going to do it again. Enjoy," he said, holding out the parcel to her. "I have to go and see the Ersatzkaiser again. I'll be back in time for dinner, _hopefully_."

Asuka grabbed the parcel out of his hands and dashed for her bedroom.

* * *

Misato blinked as she and Ritsuko walked into Commander Ikari's office. The original cavernous expanse had been largely walled off with as-yet-unpainted plasterboard, creating a sanely sized space to talk to someone in. The man himself was sitting behind a normal boss's desk in a normal-sized, if luxurious, boss's office chair, with his hands resting on the arms instead of steepled in front of him, and he appeared to have shaved and obtained some plain lenses for his glasses.

"Commander, you wanted to see me," she said, trying to keep her bemusement from showing. She'd heard about him suddenly mellowing, but seeing it was still a shock.

"Yes. First of all, how are..." He hesitated for a moment, and Misato wondered if some kind of alien had burrowed into his skull and replaced his brain. "How are Rei and Shinji?"

"Shinji's bored because there's nothing to do in the quarantine area. Rei's complaining about not being allowed to drag him straight home and sit on his face."

Gendou smiled. It was a normal human sort of smile. Misato's thoughts of brain-eating space creatures intensified. "My son seems to be a very lucky young man in this regard. Has Ri— Dr Akagi confirmed how long she intends to keep them in for examination?"

"Until morning. She says she wants to get EEG readings while they sleep."

"I doubt my son will sleep well in a quarantine cell with electrodes taped to his skull. Excuse me." He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed a number. "Dr Akagi? I have some questions about the pilots."

There was a pause.

"Is the risk of them having dangerous mental contamination more than theoretical? Rei's behaviour sounds entirely in keeping with her new personality." Another pause. "There isn't? Excellent. Let them go home." He hung up.

Misato dug her nails into her palms to stop her brain from crashing. "With respect, sir, when did you become a decent human being?"

"Shortly after Rei destroyed my scenario. Now, I believe Dr Akagi will be coming up to discuss certain matters with me. Is there anything else?"

"No, sir."

"Go get some sleep, then. We are unlikely to have another Angel attack in the next 48 hours."

* * *

With her hair dried and brushed, Asuka sat at her computer and quietly seethed to herself as she read the preliminary Angel encounter report. It wasn't fair. If the Angels kept coming as quickly as this one had, those two pilots in Japan would chew through them all before she even got a chance to be deployed there.

Literally, in this case. She didn't get that. What kind of freak would put their Eva at risk by eating a dead Angel? That was obviously insane. It could be poisonous or parasitic or God knows what. And one of them was the Japanese commander'a son! He hadn't even been given any proper training, and here he was, getting Angel kills.

She got out of her chair before the imprint from the cushion cover's weave on her thighs could get any deeper, and turned her attention to her precious parcel. The rip-strip worked better than expected and her purchase tumbled out onto the desk in a shower of packing peanuts. She caught it before it could fall to the floor, and hefted it – still in its inner polythene bag – experimentally in one hand.

It was quite imposing, really. Moving it this way and that, she concluded that (a) she'd judged Mr Kaji's dimensions pretty well from one glimpse and (b) those dimensions looked a lot more intimidating when they were made of neon pink silicone and not attached to a gorgeous, fit man with dextrous hands.

Thinking about said gorgeous, fit man, she reached down with her free hand and stroked her lower lips. She'd wanted to make sure she'd know what she'd be in for when she finally caught him, but now that she had the dildo in her hand, she was having second thoughts.

She set it down on the desk, still in the inner bag, and opened her underwear drawer. Regardless of her father's encouragement that she could have done without, she _did_ have things to do. She had a paper to write and she needed to chew out Dr Kessler for providing her with shitty data again. She grabbed a boring respectable pair of knickers and started getting dressed.

* * *

Shinji ran his tongue along Rei's pussy, licking up her juices, and jolted back in surprise. The taste wasn't bad at all, but... "Uh, Rei, you... um... you taste like... like strawberries."

"I do?" she asked, reaching down and dipping her fingers into her pussy. She raised them to her mouth and licked. "So I do. That is interesting. Now I want to know if your semen tastes of strawberries, too."

"Shouldn't we tell Dr—" A strawberry- and pussy-flavoured finger silenced him.

"No," declared Rei, pushing him onto his back. "She would probably place us in separate quarantine cells indefinitely and expect us to provide repeated samples of our sexual fluids until she was satisfied any contamination had cleared up. I do not believe you want to masturbate for science."

"I... no," he admitted, even as Rei wrapped a hand around his cock and started shuffling down the bed.

"Good," she said, planting a kiss on his cock. "Now shut up and let me suck you off."


	17. Tempus Fugit

Kensuke stared blearily into space, not really listening as the teacher droned on. Sleep. He needed more sleep. Preferably without dreams about Touji and Rei and Shinji and the Class Rep. Especially the one with all four of them.

It wasn't even that they were bad dreams. It was just... a little overwhelming. Did his subconscious really want to be _in the middle_ like that? Current blood distribution said "yes" but the brain in his head wasn't sure.

A ball of paper hit the side of his head, jolting him out of his reverie. He looked around and saw Rei... wait, did she just stick her tongue out at him? No, it was more of a quick licking of her lips. He considered trying to grab the paper from the floor without getting up but quickly realized there was no way that could end well.

A message popped up on his laptop. "`Now that I have your attention, do you want to mate with me while I suck Shinji off?`"

"`What, right now?`" He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and wondered if maybe he should start wearing boxers instead of briefs. They'd be a bit roomier.

"`Sadly I do not have sufficient influence over Japanese social mores to get away with having a threesome in Nebukawa-sensei's lessons or departing the lesson early in order to have one elsewhere. Lunchtime?`"

"`Can't. Promised Touji I'd be around. He'll be super mad at me if I don't show up. Might start losing customers.`" Kensuke stared in horror as he realized what his fingers had just told Rei. "`Aaaaaaa forget i typed that aaaaaa`"

"`I am curious what the two of you are selling. Drugs? Pornography? Cunnilingus?`"

"`Just pictures of girls. Nothing lewd. Nothing the guys couldn't see if they just kept their eyes open. It's all clean.`"

* * *

A message from Horaki appeared on Rei's screen. "`Ayanami, is it you exchanging messages with Aida?`"

"`Yes. I was trying to arrange a threesome with him and Shinji.`"

"`I know you like doing this and that with boys but that's not an appropriate use of the messaging system.`"

"`Is there a better channel for same-day arrangement of lunchtime sexual liaisons?`"

"`123qweasdzxc`"

 _Oh, fuckbiscuits,_ thought Rei, looking across the room and seeing the class rep sagging in her seat and staring at a spot on the wall above the blackboard. This demanded quick action, lest someone else notice Horaki had slipped into tilt again. She very carefully extended a probing tendril of her AT Field across the floor, keeping its orange glow as faint as possible.

Two remote keystrokes flushed the memetic hazard from Horaki's screen, and then a remote prod in the ribs dragged the pigtailed official back to consciousness with a jolt.

"`Class Representative, I am sorry I have been causing you so much added stress. Can I meet you at lunchtime to come to an understanding?`"

"`That's very good of you, Ayanami. Of course we can.`"

Rei flashed the class rep a relieved smile, just as the bell rang for the end of lesson.

* * *

There was, Hikari mused as she ate her lunch at the outside table furthest from the school building, something comforting about the faint glow in Ayanami's eyes. "What did you want to talk about?" she asked, between mouthfuls of lunch. 

Ayanami smiled, and the glow in her eyes seemed a little brighter. Hikari didn't quite understand why she was comfortable with Ayanami having glowing eyes, but she rolled with it. Ayanami was unusual. Having glowing eyes was just another unusualness. "A mutual understanding about my sex life."

Hikari gulped as the bluenette leaned forward. "I'm, ah, not interested in girls, Aya..." She tailed off. There was something about the glow in the other girl's eyes that made being formal feel _odd_. "... Rei," she finished.

"I am not intending to seduce you. I merely want to achieve mutual understanding. Touching each other's erogenous zones is not necessary." Aya— _Rei_ paused and tilted her head. "I will not be upset or offended if you feel the need to touch your own."

Hikari's eyes widened and her cheeks flushed pink. Was Rei suggesting that she... that she _touch herself_? Right here, at this table in... what was actually quite a hard spot to see from anywhere else thanks to some poor groundskeeping? Her free hand brushed across her breast, then dropped into her lap, fidgeting with the hem of her uniform.

She wasn't going to do it, of course, but it didn't seem as bad an idea as it should have. Wishing there was a discreet way to fan herself, she nodded and managed to get some words out even though her mouth was suddenly awfully dry. "Okay. Um... are you... I... I guess I... don't really mind if you touch yours either. I mean not that I'm saying I think you're going to."

Rei leaned back. It was hard to really look away from her eyes, but in her peripheral vision Hikari caught a glimpse of Rei pulling up her skirt to reveal nothing but herself underneath it. "If you don't mind, then I will, since I won't have time for sex with Shinji this lunchtime."

Hikari wished she'd kept her mouth shut. "So... do you really need to... to do it really often?"

"I seem to concentrate on tasks better if I have at least four separate orgasms a day." Rei's voice was getting breathy. "Orgasms with a partner are more effective than without. So it is in humanity's interest to allow me latitude in my mating habits."

"R-right." For a brief moment Hikari glanced down at her own skirt and realized she'd dragged it far enough up to be indecent. As she met Rei's gaze again, she decided it didn't really matter. She just needed to make sure she smoothed it down afterwards. "So, um, is there anything you want me to do?"

Rei stiffened with a gasp, and then relaxed a little. "Mm. Yes, there is. Do you have sexual feelings towards anyone in our class?"

"Suzuhara and Aida," said Hikari, parting her legs and pressing her fingers against her knickers. She was just checking how wet they'd gotten, she told herself, pulling her hand away. It was a good thing it was her week to do the laundry.

"I have no objection to you acting on your feelings towards Kensuke. He is not my boyfriend and if you want him to yourself I will not object. I believe Suzuhara might feel their friendship threatened if you only approached one of them."

Hikari caught herself touching her knickers again. This time she didn't stop, she just slipped her hand inside so she could touch _herself_. "Are... are you suggesting I.... I should do this and that with both of them?"

"It is a valid option." Rei's voice was getting ragged at the edges again.

Hikari bit back a moan. "They'll think I'm a... a slut."

Rei stiffened and relaxed again. This time she raised her hand to her lips afterwards. "Only if they are idiots. The bell will be ringing soon."

Hikari quickened her pace, a feeling that should have been alarm somehow transforming into a determination to not be beaten by the bell.

* * *

The class rep breezed into the classroom with a smile on her face and a faint lingering pinkness in her cheeks, Rei following a few steps behind. Shinji raised an eyebrow and typed a message into his laptop. "`What did you say to her?`"

The teacher came in just as Hikari settled into her chair, and there was a jovial lilt to her voice as she called out the usual routine "Stand! Bow! Sit!"

"`I suggested that she pursue Suzuhara and Kensuke as a package deal. I believe it will work out better than anyone attempting to only date one of those boys, and I am not myself interested in Suzuhara.`" A second message popped up before he could reply. "`Also we masturbated to orgasm in front of each other. Twice, in my case. I believe she will not object to our relationship any more.`"

Shinji realized he was going to have a long, hard afternoon.


	18. Mari Makinami, Welcome to QWOP

Lounging on Misato's sofa, Rei's attention was divided between her naked-aproned boyfriend's arse and a somewhat frustrated contemplation of the positional possibilities denied by Misato's "no sex in the shared areas" policy. Different heights, different firmnesses... there was so much fun that could be had. Especially if Shinji were more inclined to initiate.

The buzz of her phone receiving a text interrupted her musings. She grabbed it off the coffee table and found a message from Hikari. "`thank you for the things. do i really need this many of those?`"

Rei looked at the text and adjusted for Hikari's oblique tone. Of course a virgin would be surprised at being given 72 condoms. "`Yes. The pamphlet is aimed at your intended situation. It explains.`"

"`ok. and the thing that takes batteries. how do i turn it on?`"

"`Put batteries in. Twist. Hold it against the appropriate area. It may be noisy.`" Rei made a mental note that she needed to get _herself_ a vibrator at some point. They seemed like they would be a lot of fun.

"`thanks.`"

Rei reached out to put her phone back on the coffee table, only for it to buzz again. It was Ritsuko this time. "`We have an AT Field ghost in one of the cages. She wants to be a real girl again. Do you mind her being given one of your clones? She gave a lurid oath about not using it for sexual harassment.`"

"`Mari can have a clone as long as she promises to wear a distinctive hairstyle.`"

"`How did you know her name was Mari?`"

"`She is the only female deuterocanonical character who would need to offer such an oath.`"

"`Sometimes I envy the people whose brains you can crash.`"

"`Don't ask me questions you don't want me to answer, then.`"

The *ding* of the rice cooker, and the almost simultaneous call of "We're home!" from the front hall, alerted Rei to the prospect of imminent dinner, and she sent Ritsuko an extra text. "`Shinji is about to dish up. Call me later if you need anything else.`"

* * *

Mari perked up when she spotted Labcoat wheeling a trolley into the cage. Was this progress? Was she going to get a body so she could— no, wait. She needed to not do that, however tempting Puppy might be. Oaths. Scary judgement kami. Hell of Upside-Down Sinners. Being a tube worm.

"Well, Makinami, here we are," announced Labcoat, swivelling the phonograph horn on top of the pile of circuit boards towards Mari. "One Spengler trap circuit, two Souryuu-Ikari anima couplers, and a Fuyutsuki capacitor. I have no idea whether this will hurt or not. I don't have any other ghosts to test it on."

Mari crossed her ethereal fingers.

Labcoat pulled a blindfold down over her eyes. It looked like the kind you got from a leather shop. "Three... two... one..."

Everything went purple. The world tasted of batteries, vinegar, and blood. All her not-body parts felt like prawn crackers melting on her tongue.

Then she was naked in a tube of some kind of clear bluish bio-goo with a respirator clamped over her mouth. Toes! She had toes and they could wiggle! And actual fingers! And this body didn't have myopia! It was going to feel weird walking around in an actual body without having to wear glasses. She gave her boobs an experimental squeeze and grinned. They had actual nerve endings!

Labcoat walked into the room and tapped away at some buttons. The bio-goo started draining, and as it sank too low to float in, Mari came to an awkward realization.

She'd forgotten how to stand up. How did legs even work, anyway? And even if they did work, bipedal stance was _boring_. Being a four-armed divine cybercentaur with roller skates was where it was at.

The front of the tube slid open and Mari toppled out in an ungainly tangle of limbs. Standing up wasn't going to happen, but she at least managed to drag herself into a half-sitting half-propping-herself-up position. "Hi," she said, making puppy-dog eyes at Labcoat. "Can I have a wheelchair? Legs are stupid."

* * *

Retrieval and reincarnation of persistent residual souls, and subsequent rehabilitation protocols. Akagi R, Akagi N C, Akagi N B, Akagi N M. Tokyo-3, 2015.

* * *

Lying in a contented post-coital daze with Kaji's arm across her chest and his face nuzzling her neck, Misato found herself rudely distracted by her official phone. Gently disentangling herself from her amorous rogue, she answered it. "What is it, Ritz?"

"Rei has a clone sister now. She's going to be on the medical wing for now because she's forgotten how _legs_ work, but that's a lonely place to be and she's a howling extrovert with possible hypomania. Where do you suggest we house her? Technically she's a pilot candidate, because – get this –she says she can sync to other people's Eva units and her explanation makes actual sense."

Misato pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn't need this. "Slow down, Ritz. So... through some mad science bullshit we have another Rei only she doesn't know how to walk?"

"We have a Mari. She's... well, maybe not as different to Rei now as to Rei two weeks ago, but still definitely not Rei. She insists she'd be fine getting around if we turned her into a cybercentaur, which _no_ , we can't do. At human scale. Yet."

"Ask the Commander. Or ask me in the morning when I am _dressed_ and _at work_. Good night, Ritz."

Misato hung up and flicked the phone to emergency only before smiling at Kaji and stroking his chest. "That was a load of bull. Help me get my mind off it?"

Kaji grinned back at her and scooted down the bed. "Of course, Kacchan," he said, as he leaned over to put his head between her legs.


	19. Six Days Shalt Thou Work...

Rei woke up.

It was Sunday.

She had no idea what to do on a Sunday.

Well, she corrected herself, she had several ideas, but Shinji's stamina was finite and she had committed to leaving Kensuke for Hikari unless the other girl decided she was comfortable sharing.

She got out of the futon and headed for the bathroom. She _liked_ falling asleep freshly mated, but it did leave her feeling rather sticky in the mornings. She set to work freshening herself up, stopping halfway through her shower to indulge in the wonderful sensation of the spray against her clitoris. It was a small orgasm, like the ones she'd given herself in front of Hikari, but combined with being clean again it was enough to make her feel focused.

There was, she mused as she towelled off afterwards, plenty to _get done_. She'd provided Hikari with some material and supplies to work with, but she still needed to take steps to ensure the targets of the class rep's affections didn't _completely fuck things up_.

She returned to the bedroom and was greeted with the sight of the sheets falling away from Shinji's chest as he woke up. "I don't feel like having two showers this morning," she told him with a smile, "but I would be very happy to suck you off after breakfast."

Shinji blushed charmingly as he got to his feet, for one brief moment trying to cover up his erection before he presumably remembered she _liked_ seeing his penis jutting out like that, even if it was just 'morning wood'. Slipping gracefully out of his way, she turned her attention to the subject of what to wear and came to an awkward realization.

She had no casual clothing, and community standards would make it difficult to go shopping in the nude. That would be another task to attend to urgently; in the meantime, she dressed in her school uniform again, though she left off the ribbon and didn't bother buttoning her blouse further than absolutely necessary.

She tucked her phone and wallet into her school bag, and realized that she had no idea what to do while she _waited_ , either. She walked through to the lounge, sat on the sofa with her bag in her lap, and _planned_.

First, shopping. Some casual clothing so she could dress more appropriately for social environments that were not school. Her own vibrator. Some personal lubricant and a buttplug, to experiment with having something in her anus while she mated with Shinji.

Second, completing her matchmaking mission. Providing Kensuke and Suzuhara with the male counterpart of the pamphlet she'd given Hikari. Impressing on the two boys that being dated by a cute girl who fantasized about mating with both of them at once was more important than their business venture. Making sure she did not disclose the identity of their admirer prematurely.

Third, NERV business. Checking whether Ritsuko had finished producing her new swimwear. Visiting her clone sister in the medical wing. Talking to Misato about suitable living arrangements, with particular regard to Mari being bisexual, horny, and temporarily mobility-restricted.

She sighed and shook her head. It was the right plan, but she didn't like it. It didn't have much room for mating activities. Mari might be amenable to mutual cunnilingus in a hospital bed, but the medical staff would certainly object.

Shinji emerged from the bathroom, clean and freshly towelled off. "Uh, Rei, it's Sunday, we don't have school."

"I know. I don't have any casual clothing, Misato's is for a woman with broader hips and larger breasts than mine, and I have not yet begun my political scheme to have casual public nudity normalized."

Shinji blinked. She smiled at the thought that he was finally getting properly used to who she was. "Uh, that's pretty ambitious."

"We are going to save the world from space monsters and a sinister death cult. The least humanity can do in gratitude is make it a more pleasant place to be me in. But that's a plan for another day. Today, I merely need to deal with the complexities of selecting casual clothing suitable for wearing in public without undergarments."

Shinji nodded. "Start small, I guess. Do you want breakfast?"

"Yes please."

* * *

Fashion, Rei quickly concluded as she looked through the clothes on display, was a conspiracy against her. _This_ was impractical. _That_ was charming, but the fabric was too pale and thin to entirely conform to social norms without knickers. _That_ would be interesting but would require a bra under it.

The blue dress she picked out in the end was darker than she wanted, but it fit her requirements. The fabric was tolerable against her skin, the opacity and fit were adequate to not draw attention to the absence of undergarments, and the store had three copies of it in her size. The price tag was high compared to other items she'd considered, but it was all going on her NERV card anyway.

* * *

Rei looked at the selection of buttplugs, then turned to the clerk. "Excuse me. Would you recommend the silicone or the stainless steel?"

"I like the stainless steel but if you get hayfever at all the silicone's better," replied the clerk.

"Could you clarify that?"

"Sneezing with a steel one in _hurts_."

"Ah. I do not get hayfever, but I think I will go with the silicone anyway." She picked out three different sizes, in colours that were not neon pink.

"Nice," said the clerk. "Anything else?"

Rei pointed to the same model of vibrator she'd given to Hikari. "One of those, a half-litre bottle of Satin Flow, and two copies of the MMF threesomes guide for men."

"Sounds like someone's got a good week ahead of them," said the clerk with a wink.

* * *

In the semi-darkness of the arcade, as the "GAME OVER" screen flashed up in front of him and Touji, Kensuke heard Rei's voice behind him. "Kensuke. Suzuhara. I need to speak with you."

Kensuke blinked, and slowly turned around. Rei was wearing a dark blue minidress. That was new. She was also carrying three different shopping bags. "Uh, hi, Rei. What is it?"

Touji chimed in. "Whatcha want, Ayanami?"

Her eyes glowed faintly. "A cute girl who is not me is going to ask you both on a date at the same time. I want you to go on the date and not fuck up."

"A cute girl, huh? Who's that then?"

"She wants to tell you herself. I will tell you that she'll be very unhappy if she finds you still selling pictures of girls. I don't care about your business venture, but if you make her unhappy, you will make me unhappy. If you make me unhappy we will have words."

Kensuke gulped nervously. It was hard to look at anything that wasn't Rei's eyes. "Right. Okay. No more selling pictures. Got it. Got it, Touji?"

"Yeah, yeah, got it. Whadda we tell the regulars?"

"Tell them you got caught and let off the hook on the condition that you stop. It is true, after all." The light in her eyes brightened. "Take these pamphlets home and read them. Understand them. They will help you not fuck up. Particularly if you happen to find that you are into each other as well as her."

Kensuke took what was pushed into his hand.

"Enjoy your afternoon." She spun on her heel and walked away before they could say anything else.

Kensuke looked down at the pamphlet and the condom-covered cartoon penis on it. Yeah, definitely not something to read in public.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> six days shalt thou work and do all thou'rt able – the seventh the same, and muck out the stable.


	20. Rei's Sunday Afternoon

Restless and underslept, Asuka sat at her computer in the early morning, sifting through her email. Junk. Junk. Junk. Some more data from those idiots in Nevada wittering about how they were getting closer to creating a synthetic S2 organ. Junk. Administrative junk. She stopped. The subject line was a row of boxes and the sender was listed as `akagi.ritsuko@nerv.jp`. What did _she_ want?

She opened the email and swore. The whole message was in fucking moonrunes. Why couldn't Japanese people have a sensible writing system? One with a reasonable number of characters? She typed in a short response. "`I don't read kanji. Try again. Regards, Asuka Langley Souryuu.`"

She got up from her chair, her hand bumping against the neon pink dildo she still hadn't worked up the courage to use, and her thoughts drifted back to Kaji. That prettyboy Papa brought round had said things she refused to believe. Kaji couldn't possibly be screwing around like that and still not be interested in _her_ , Papa's threat to unman him be damned.

She looked at the dildo. She looked at her incredibly expensive experimental touchscreen phone with its built-in cameras. She stretched her jaw experimentally. Yes. She'd just about be able to get it past her teeth without scraping. It would be a strain and she wouldn't want to do it for very long, but it was something she could work with and she only needed one picture. She just needed to find the right email address for Kaji.

`To: mailadmin@nerv.jp  
Subject: Ryouji Kaji`

`Please could you tell me Ryouji Kaji's email address at NERV Japan? I need to contact him about an important matter.`

`Thanks  
Lieutenant Asuka Langley Souryuu BSc`

There. That should do it.

* * *

Hurrying home to avoid hauling her shopping around NERV HQ, an increasingly horny Rei was pleasantly surprised to arrive at the entrance to the apartment building at the same time as Shinji. "Hi, Rei," he greeted her, his arms too full of shopping to wave. "I like your new dress, by the way."

"Thank you," she said with a smile, and followed him up the stairs. There was an obvious course of action when they got their shopping put away, and based on the current state of her vagina, it seemed likely to be quite quick. "Shinji, I have further errands to run, but I would also like you to bend me over your desk and mate with me after we put away our shopping."

He managed to not break stride at her declaration. He was obviously getting better at running his brain on a reduced blood supply. "That, uh, sounds good!"

She rejoiced inwardly and quickened her pace up the stairs, beating Shinji to Misato's front door by a good ten metres. Her extended senses told her that both Kaji and Misato were absent, so she made a beeline for the bedroom without bothering with the customary salutation.

After all, if she was quick, she could integrate at least one of her new purchases into the session.

* * *

With the last of the groceries safely put away, Shinji surrendered to his erection and let it lead him to the bedroom. Rei was standing by the desk with her back to the door, and was fidgeting with something he couldn't see. He stepped up behind her, replaying her words in his head. " _bend me over your desk and mate with me_."

"Hello, Shinji," she said. There were a couple of clicks from whatever she was holding. "I meant exactly what I said, by the way."

"R-right." He licked his lips nervously, put his hands on her shoulders, and pushed. She yielded to the movement and its intent, slipping one hand underneath her body while she pulled the back of her dress up with the other. "Like that?"

"Yes. Keep going."

He slid the bedroom door shut and hurriedly pulled down his trousers and boxers, relieved to have his erection free of their clothy confines. As he pressed the head of his cock against his girlfriend's slick pussy lips, he heard a click and a buzzing sound, and then a gasp.

"Rei?" he asked, hesitating at her entrance.

" _Now_ , dammit!"

He thrust into her with a groan, her hot wet flesh eagerly engulfing him. "Oh, Rei!"

"Fuck me hard fuck me fuck me _fuck_ me."

Her body was shaking with tension as he grabbed her hips and did exactly that. Something slick and hard and _buzzing_ brushed against the underside of his cock, and he knew this was going to be quick.

She came first, howling in delight as her pussy squeezed him rhythmically. Overwhelmed by sensation, he barely heard the thud of whatever had fallen on the floor as he thrust as deep as he could and pumped his spunk into her, his knees almost buckling beneath him.

"Ahhh... thank you, Shinji," murmured Rei as he slipped out of her. "Could you pick up my vibrator, please? I dropped it at the end."

He blinked dazedly, then stooped to the floor and picked up the buzzing plastic widget. "Uh, should I turn it off? How do I turn it off?"

"Hold the ends and twist," she said, straightening up and letting the hem of her dress drop back down to cover her arse.

"Right." He twisted, and the device went still in his hands. There was something...

She turned around, her eyes glowing faintly. "Are you worried about me using a sex toy while you mate with me, Shinji?"

"Um, yes, a little." It was so much easier to admit things when he was looking into her eyes like this. "It... am I not enough?"

"You are enough, but the nature of my libido is to want more than enough. And my stamina is inevitably greater than yours." She sank slowly to her knees, keeping her gaze locked with his. "When I am interested in others, it is _as well as_ you."

"R-right." It made sense. It was just hard to get his brain used to it.

"Would you like us to share ourselves with another girl? I know of someone who is almost certainly interested, but her circumstances make it very difficult for her to initiate an approach." She wrapped a hand around his revitalized cock and licked the head. "I can guarantee you will find her attractive."

* * *

Alone in her hospital room, Mari sneezed.

"Dammit, Blueberry, you're talking about me, aren't you?"

* * *

Bent over her desk, Ritsuko groaned appreciatively as Gendou buried his face in her cunt, licking up his own load as it leaked out of her. He was getting good at this now he was no longer prissy about tasting his spunk. 

Her appreciation was somewhat dampened by the sound of someone knocking at the door... in the pattern she'd agreed with Rei. With a sigh of regret, she pushed Gendou's head away and straightened up. "Stop for now, Gendou-kun. That's Rei at the door."

"Shall I come back later, Ritsuko-sama?" he asked quietly as she flipped the back of her labcoat down.

"Can we still get at your ridiculous desk and chair?"

"Yes."

"I'll come by and you can eat my cunt from under the desk." She put her earring back on and walked over to answer the door.

"Hello, Ritsuko. Hello, Commander. Is my swimsuit ready?"

Ritsuko fought down the urge to throttle the disgustingly chipper-looking bluenette demigoddess as Gendou slipped past them and out into the hall. "Yes, Rei. There's three of them in that bundle."

"Thank you." Rei picked up the stack of folded swimwear. "How are you enjoying the new Gendou?"

Ritsuko scowled. "How about détente? You don't talk about your sex life, and I don't talk about mine?"

Rei tilted her head, then shook it. "Your official role requires you to know things about mine. For example, I am planning to invite Mari into a sexual relationship with myself and Shinji. But I will accept your request to not discuss yours."

"You want to _date_ Sekuhara-chan?"

"Yes. She has the same body as me and I would prefer her brain to not explode from sexual frustration. Also, the thought of watch—"

Ritsuko took her continued bodily integrity in her hands and pressed a finger to Rei's lips. "I don't need the details unless they become professionally relevant, Rei."

"Understood. Sorry, Ritsuko. I was warming to the topic."

As Rei walked away with her swimwear, Ritusko sniffed the air. _Strawberries?_


	21. Eleven

Misato stared at the purchase order records.

369.

369.

Why the fuck was there an order being shipped by NERV-Jakarta for 369 barrels of plugsuit fabrication gel? She grabbed her desk phone and called Ritsuko.

"Ah, Misato, I was hoping you'd—"

"Ritz, what the fuck?" she interrupted before Ritsuko could distract her. "Why do you need 369 barrels of plugsuit gel? Are you planning some kind of pervy fetish party or something? You could dress most of the base in them with that much."

"369? I only asked for three. Who was entering orders into the system, anyway?"

Misato looked at the timestamp and user ID on the order, and groaned. That was the evening she'd had Kaji stuffed under her desk. She leaned back in her chair, staring at the pattern in the acoustic tile. She'd need to check all the orders from that evening now. "Uh, must have been a typo somewhere," she said.

"Uh huh. Since you're here, can we talk about Mari? I really don't think she _needs_ to be in the hospital wing, given that she's lucid, continent, and not actually injured. The obvious thing to do would be to put her up with the other pilots in a vacant apartment. It'd get you out from under their feet."

"Did you just say get _me_ out from under _their_ feet?" growled Misato, bridling at the completely unjustified insinuation that she was difficult to live with.

"Yes. Shinji can cook and clean considerably better than you can."

"I'm not buying you any drinks on your birthday."

"That's all right, Gendou will pick up my tab if he wants any nookie that night. So, does my plan meet with your approval? I'm sure you can pull some strings to get a new apartment furnished for them."

Misato screamed internally as her brain drew unhelpful pictures of Commander Ikari on top of her old friend. "That... if I argue you'll just get the Commander to sign it off anyway, won't you?"

"Yes. If only because otherwise Rei might come up with some even more outré arrangement than a ménage à trois. At this point I wouldn't put it past her to suggest mixed dormitories."

Misato admitted defeat, if only so that she could go seek out some of that Polish stuff that was distilled until it couldn't be distilled any harder. "Fine. Fantastic. Whatever. Leave me with nobody to cook me a decent meal."

"I hear from NERV-Berlin that Kaji can make super-spicy instant ramen without making anyone hallucinate, and actually reads the instructions on ready meals."

Misato slammed the phone down. She didn't need to sit there and be insulted by her best friend.

Even if it was true.

She typed a quick email to the storage admins. "`Hi. There's been a mixup and we're going to receive 369 barrels of plugsuit gel in a few days. Could you make sure there's space to receive it?`"

* * *

As she walked into the medical wing, pondering the possibility of arranging a mixed dormitory for the pilots, Rei's phone buzzed with a text. "`Rei. Misato has agreed to move you, Shinji, and Mari into a new apartment together. Furniture should be there by Monday evening. Mari will need clothes.`"

"`She should take the same sizes as me. She usually likes pink and plaid. She probably likes uncomfortably fancy underwear.`" Rei looked up from her phone and smiled at the receptionist. "Excuse me, I'm here to see my twintailed doppelganger who can't walk. Which room is she in?"

The receptionist blinked. "Uh, she's in room 17. She's been pretty grouchy all day, though."

"I am sure I can improve her mood," replied Rei, moving her eyebrows in what she hoped was a lascivious fashion.

The receptionist shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Right. Of course. I'm sure you can. I'll just make sure nobody... interrupts you."

Rei smiled and left him to ponder whatever lurid images his mind had produce. If it meant she could get enough time with Mari, she was perfectly happy for him to imagine such things.

She reached the door and knocked sharply three times. There was some hurried rustling, and then she heard a voice at once like and unlike her own call out. "Come in!"

She walked in, closing the door firmly behind her. Her clone, dressed in a hospital gown, was sitting up in bed with a book raised as if to cover the slight flush in her cheeks. Rei smiled at Mari and bowed. "Pleased to meet you, Pilot Makinami."

"Labcoat was talking about having me use your surname. I mean, in this body I'm pretty much your twin sister. And please, call me Mari, it's weird being called by my surname. I grew up in England. Sometimes, anyway." Mari trailed off.

Rei nodded. "All right, Mari. I was hoping to become intimate enough with you to do so anyway. How are your legs?"

"They're fine. I just don't know how they fucking work, do I? I was a ghost and before that I was dead and before that I was piloting an Eva with four legs. Labcoat said something about the physio training me to walk, but that sounds like it could take ages." She stopped for breath, and continued with a nervous excitement in her voice. "Wait, what was that about becoming intimate?"

"I would like to establish a sexual relationship between you, myself, and Shinji. And possibly any other Evangelion pilots who are attracted to such an arrangement."

Mari pouted at Rei as she fanned herself with her book. "That's not fair, Blueberry, saying things like that while I'm stuck in here. I can't, um—" She paused. "Uh, I guess you already made a pass at me so I can talk about sex without it being harassment, right?"

"Yes. Are you that severely concerned?"

"Tube worm. Hell of Upside-Down Sinners. Angry Great King Enma. Sadface Kanzeon. Yes, I am that severely concerned. But you want to have sex with me, so it's okay to talk about it and if anyone's eavesdropping they only have themselves to blame."

Rei nodded. "Yes. I am entirely open to hearing about your sexual practices and desires."

Mari grinned. "I'd come over there and hug you but I'd just land flat on my arse if I tried. So yeah. I can't wank properly in here because I never learned to come quietly and half the nurses don't knock."

Rei looked Mari over. "If you lie flat and remove the sheet and gown, I can help familiarize you with your legs. It might help hasten your recovery to full mobility."

"Familiarize me with my legs. Hah. That sounds like some creepy _rhymes-with-sewage_ huckster talking his way into a cultist's knickers." Mari licked her lips. "Not that I'm wearing any knickers, so if you're interested..."

Rei walked up to the side of the bed and manifested her AT Field in a bubble around them both, texturing its surface _just so_. "This barrier will absorb audio-frequency vibrations. Nobody will hear us. Also, I applaud your lack of undergarments and would like to encourage you to continue it."

Mari shuffled down in the bed and threw back the sheet. "But I liiiiiike wearing sexy undies! Silk feels so good on my skin when I'm shaved."

"I take it you prefer to have a hairless pubic region, then?" asked Rei as Mari untied the back of her gown and shucked it off. "I can adjust your hair growth pattern if you want."

"Specifically shaved. It feels like I'm making an effort to be sexy, y'know?"

"I see." Rei surveyed her clone's nude form and stepped to the foot of the bed. "Let us start with your feet. Feet are the essential contact points of a bipedal stance."


	22. Familiarization

Mari wasn't used to this.

She was used to being the one taking charge.

Even in the continuities where she was getting tied up by Princess or bent over a lab bench by Puppy, she still had the upper hand.

But here she was, putty in Blueberry's hands, making occasional whimpers as her clone-sister massaged every square inch of her legs.

Every. Square. Inch.

She needed a new nickname for Rei. Blueberry was good but now they both had blue hair and she didn't think her own would take dye.

There was a pause. Rei's hands were on her inner thighs not moving. She couldn't process it properly. She blinked fuzzily at Rei, still not quite used to the novelty of being able to see someone's face clearly without glasses when they weren't close enough to kiss. "Whydjastop" she mumbled.

"This will be easier if your legs are further apart," said Rei.

"You want me to spread my legs for you, huh?" asked Mari, seizing – a little nervously – upon the straight line.

Rei didn't move. She didn't even flinch, and the amount of pink in her cheeks didn't change. Mari noticed that the room had started to smell a little of strawberries while she was spaced out. "Yes," replied Rei. "Both literally and, as I already established, figuratively."

Mari's flusteredness intensified as she _complied_ with Rei's suggestion, parting her thighs and letting Rei see how wet her pussy was getting. She knew her cheeks had to be bright red by now. "Yes'm," she half-whispered.

Rei smiled at her, and resumed her ministrations. "Thank you."

That whole overwhelmedness rushed back with a vengeance as Rei treated the insides and backs of her thighs with the same loving attention to detail as the rest of her legs. Mari knew she was making sex noises now, and she didn't care. She just wanted Rei to keep going.

Rei was talking. It didn't sound like it was about legs. Mari tried to concentrate on the words. "—to lick your cervix."

Mari didn't quite have an orgasm. Her eyes snapped open. "L-lick... what?"

Rei kept working on Mari's legs as she extended her tongue to a frankly inhuman length, then retracted it. "I said I would like to lick your cervix."

Mari bit her lip. Rather harder than she meant to. "Now?" she asked, grimacing slightly at the taste of blood. One more thing she needed to learn about having a body again.

"If you are interested. I am quite happy to restrict myself to more conventional cun—"

"Fuck yes you can lick me from the inside please do it."

Rei drew her hands back and reached for the hem of her dress. "Would you like me to be nude while I lick your vagina?"

Mari nodded so hard she was almost headbanging. "Please. I want to see you."

"Thank you," replied Rei, whipping her dress off in a single motion to reveal she wasn't wearing anything under it.

"Short dress and no undies? Naughty girl," said Mari, her usual demeanour sparking up again.

"I do not like closely fitted conventional textiles against my breasts or vulva." Rei raised her arms over her head, giving Mari a good long look at her naked body. "Also, they get in the way of mating. Is there anything else you want to say before I start?"

"Just that I love your tits."

Rei smiled and climbed onto the bed. "Yours are quite pleasing. Interestingly vain of us. Now, please feel free to express yourself. The room is still soundproofed by my AT field."

Rei's head dipped between Mari's legs, and she started to lick. Mari groaned, bucking her hips against the other girl's face and tangling her fingers in her scruffy blue bob, and felt Rei's tongue doing that thing, extending beyond any human limit to slide into her drooling pussy while still pressing against her clit.

There was nothing but Rei. Nothing Mari could think about but how amazing it felt to have a tongue sliding against her clit and pressing against just the right spots inside as it pushed deeper and wriggled and teased and oh wow Rei really meant it about licking her cervix that wasn't the best part of what her tongue was doing but it was unreal and hot and and and.

Her toes curled. Her fingers tightened around Rei's head. Her back arched. Her hips bucked and her cunt squeezed and she screamed for more as that impossible tongue drove her over the edge, bringing her the release she so urgently needed.

Buzzed and blissy and exhausted, she saw a very flushed-looking Rei climbing back off the bed. The scent of strawberries was considerably stronger. "Your turn?" asked Mari, feeling she should at least try to return the favour. Even if she was too afterglowy to move.

"I was planning to go straight home and have Shinji fuck me," replied Rei. "But you can have a taste."

Rei swiped a slick finger across the skin between Mari's mouth and nose. Mari blinked, slightly startled by the sudden intensity of the strawberry overtone in what she assumed was Rei's pussy juice. "Strawberries?" she asked.

"I'll explain later." Rei pulled her dress back on. "Do you need help getting respectable again?"

"Ooog. I don't think I can reach the gown. Or the sheet. I mean, even if I knew how to stand up."

* * *

"I'm home!" called Rei as the front door slid shut and she reached for the hem of her dress.

"Welcome home!" called Misato and Shinji from the kitchen as Rei pulled her dress up over her head. "Dinner's nearly ready," added Shinji.

 _Bother._ She'd been hoping to drag Shinji straight to the bedroom so he could fuck her. She strolled into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

Misato raised an eyebrow. "Been up to something fun?" she asked, raising a can of beer to her lips.

"I massaged Mari's legs to make her physiotherapy progress faster then fucked her with my tongue until she came. Shinj—"

Rei's attempt to invite Shinji to take her to bed after dinner was rudely interrupted by droplets of beer spattering her courtesy of Misato's astonishment. It was, she decided, a good thing she and Shinji would be moving out.

"Excuse me," she said, swiping at her breasts. "I think I will take a shower before dinner. I would prefer not to smell of beer."


	23. Coming to Terms

Kaworu walked through the deepest hallways of NERV-Berlin, carrying a sturdy metal-shelled case lined with foam. There were no security guards to query his exact choice of route; anyone who should not be there should have been intercepted at one of the three checkpoints he'd walked through on the way.

They hadn't stopped him, the Chairman's uncanny red-eyed favourite, for a search. They hadn't even asked what was in the case, or why he had a personal stereo in flagrant violation of the rules on what could be brought into those deep hallways.

As slow, melancholic guitar music from the 1980s filled his ears, a small reminder of the wonders the Lilim could create, he walked up to the most forbidden of forbidden doors and inserted the key he had purloined from the service yard of the apartment building next to Ryouji Kaji's. For a moment, lights flicked from amber to red, and he wondered if the refurbished RDS-220 underneath the reliquary was about to initiate. Then they flicked to blue, and the doors swung inward, admitting him to the reliquary of ADAM. Turning up the volume on his personal stereo, he set his case down on the floor and opened it ready to receive its sacred payload.

In compliance with his basal imperatives, he disengaged the locks that held his greater self's embryonic relic. Power lay there for the taking. Power to cleanse the Earth of the ecosystem that the Black Moon had sculpted and replace it with one in his own image.

In defiance of those same imperatives, he lifted the capsule of glass, steel, and epoxy resin out of the reliquary and nestled it safely in the foam-lined case. Without Lilim, there would be no music, and that he could not allow.

With the most precious object on Earth thus extracted, he set Chairman Kiel's Brandenburg Gate snowglobe in the reliquary and resealed it.

* * *

Shinji looked up at the ceiling, gently stroking Rei's hair as she lay inelegantly draped across him. She'd been particularly vigorous this evening, thanks to being keyed up from her afternoon activities, and he felt a little bit sore from it.

"Rei?" he asked, finally settling on what he wanted to say.

"Yssshnj." She raised her head off his chest, smiling up at him. "Yes, Shinji?"

"About Mari. What's she actually _like_?"

"Anatomically she is me, except that her vagina does not taste of strawberries because she has not used an Eva to eat a strawberry flavour Angel. She does not have my exotic capabilities, because those are derived from my soul. She enjoys using innuendo, provocative outfits, and so forth to put people off balance and take charge of sexual encounters, but is easily thrown off balance herself and diverted into a genuinely submissive role when her target proves unflappable." Rei licked her lips. "Oh, and she likes sexy underwear, is very outgoing in general, prefers a twintailed hairstyle, gives nicknames at the drop of a hat, and shaves her pubic hair."

Shinji blinked, trying to process all of that. "She sounds, um, maybe slightly stressful?"

"I am perfectly prepared to sit on her face and explain to her why she should moderate her behaviour towards you while she licks my clitoris."

Despite his state of sexual exhaustion, his libido helpfully provided a mental image of Rei doing precisely that to her double. "That's, um, reassuring, I guess."

"Also she is under a suspended sentence of prolonged damnation and dismal reincarnation for sexual harassment. I believe this is contributing to her current sense of vulnerability as it means she cannot paraglide her cleavage into people's faces and sniff them."

"That sounds disturbing."

"Great King Enma and other mythological judgment deities usually are. I was somewhat alarmed to discover that they are real." Rei rolled off of Shinji and stretched indulgently. "Or do you mean the paragliding bit? That is one of the things that got her judged unkindly by Great King Enma."

Shinji massaged his temples. "Rei, are you sure having a relationship with her is a good idea?"

"If it turns out not to be, we can discontinue it. I would very much like to try to make it work before discarding it as unfeasible." She leaned in and nuzzled his neck. "Mm. How inconvenient. I appear to be horny again and I am conscious that I have caused you some physical discomfort with our most recent mating."

Shinji nodded. "I am kinda sore."

Rei scooted down the futon and stared intently at his cock. After a few moments, she looked up at his face. "I can readily increase the resilience of your genitals just as I can easily increase someone's vaginal elasticity, but a broader-reaching physical resilience enhancement would be... oh! I could leverage the same Angelic factors in your system that make your semen taste of strawberries, but it may have surprising effects."

"What?!"

"Sorry. I am thinking out loud." She kissed him on the hip. "Rest assured that I will not perform unrequested alterations of your biology. The incident with Ritsuko's contraception has made it clear to me why that is unwise and inappropriate."

"Oh." Increased resilience sounded appealing. He _wanted_ to be able to keep up with his girlfriend and not have to stop because things hurt. "What kind of surprising effects do you mean?"

"Exotic hair colour resistant to dyeing or bleaching, pale but UV-resistant skin, exotic eye colour, altered bodily proportions, possibly developing a vagina and breasts, being stuffed into permanent quarantine by Ritsuko..."

Shinji shook his head vigorously. "No, let's not do that."

Rei scooted back up the futon and kissed him quickly on the lips. "I expected you would say that."

* * *

"Aida? Suzuhara? I was wondering if you'd like to go somewhere with me after school. Together. Nothing to do with school."

Kensuke looked at the class rep, then at Touji, then recalled the words of a certain intimidating bluenette. She had to have been talking about Horaki, there was no way there could be _two_ girls wanting to date him and Touji. "Yes, we'd love to," said Kensuke hurriedly before Touji could say anything different. "What did you have in mind?"

Across the classroom, the certain terrifying bluenette positively beamed.


	24. Transmissibility

Shinji – still fully clothed, to Rei's disappointment, in the name of not perturbing whoever brought Mari and her luggage to the door – busied himself with preparations for dinner while Rei, nude as was her habit, moved from one piece of furniture to the next, variously bending over or perching on the edge or kneeling alongside or underneath.

"Hm. The kitchen floor is uncomfortable to kneel on," she observed as she climbed out from under the kitchen table.

"I think it's mostly supposed to be waterproof and easy to clean," replied Shinji, trying not to think too hard about—

"True. Still disappointing. It makes the prospect of performing oral sex under the table less pleasant." She stretched and sighed. "The discomfort itself might be interesting when I am in a particularly compliant mood."

Finally recognizing a lost cause for what it was, Shinji gave up on not thinking about sex and smiled at Rei. "So if you were feeling very compliant, that's something you'd be happy to be told to do?"

"Yes," she affirmed, looking around. "I presume you wish the kitchen worktops to be off limits for sexual activity."

"Um, yes, definitely." Shinji glanced at the clock, then at the timer on the rice cooker. Mari was supposed to be turning up soon, but there was no—

The doorbell rang. Shinji set the stirring spoon across the top of the saucepan full of simmering curry and headed for the front door. There was a girl outside in a wheelchair – a spitting image of Rei, except for the twintails – with two black-suited Section Two agents standing behind her. Shinji opened the door and smiled. "Good evening. You're Mari, right?"

"Yes, that's me! So, uh, I was hoping—" She cut herself off. "No, mustn't say that. Can I come in?"

"Of course!" said Shinji.

"Great!" Mari paused. "Could you get out of the way? I can't really sidle round people in this thing."

Shinji's cheeks burned as he realized his mistake and backed up against the wall. Mari wheeled herself through the front door and pivoted the chair round. "Thanks for the ride!" she called out to the agents. "Shinji, could you get my suitcases?"

Mari wheeled past him, cursing at each corner. "Thanks for helping her up here," said Shinji to the two agents as he pulled Mari's suitcases – thankfully, both wheeled – into the apartment.

"You're welcome, Pilot," replied one of the agents. "Have a good evening."

"You too." Shinji closed the front door and hurried back to the kitchen to attend to the dinner.

* * *

Mari patted her stomach contentedly. Life was mostly good, even if she did need a wheelchair to get anywhere. "That was really delicious, Puppy! You could make it hotter next time if you want, I'm a big girl and I can handle my spices."

"I made it how I like it," said Shinji, smiling at her. "But if you want it hotter I can try doing that."

Mari looked at Shinji, then at Rei, and fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. The cheerfully naked nephilah was making her feel overdressed but she didn't want to push the line too hard with Shinji and get turned into a tubeworm. "Um. I... Shinji, do you mind if I take off some clothes? I feel kind of overdressed around Rei but, um, it' okay if you'd rather I kept them on for now."

Shinji blushed endearingly. "Uh, well, it is a clothing optional space so you can go n—" He paused. "So you can take off as much as you want, really."

Mari beamed at him. "Yay!" Freed from her reincarnatory anxieties, she whipped off her T-shirt, then paused. "Oh bollocks, there's nowhere to put it."

Rei rose from her seat and walked around to Mari's side of the table. "If you hand me any garments you take off, I can put them in the laundry for you."

Mari smiled and handed the T-shirt to Rei. "Thanks! I really hate this 'not being able to walk' thing."

"Understandable," said Rei "Will you be wanting help in the shower?"

"Ooh, can I pick who helps me?" asked Mari as she wriggled out of her flared miniskirt. "I mean, you're both lovely and I can't decide who I'd rather be helped by." She handed the skirt off to Rei and stretched.

"Uh, I, um," Shinji paused and rubbed his face. "Could we, uh, talk about a few things first?"

Mari bit her lip nervously as she realized she'd been pushing the line. "Yes, of course. Um, so, I... Shinji, does it bother you that I'm being so forward?"

Shinji nodded. "A little bit. I mean, Rei told me a bit about you so I was kind of expecting something but I didn't know it would be quite like this."

Mari sagged slightly in her chair. This wasn't going how she'd expected. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to upset you, I was just really excited to see you and... well, um, Rei kind of said you were okay with there being a relationship with all three of us and I get really horny because this body is like that and I'm in a room with you and a naked Rei and I know you two have sex and I'm thinking about. Um. Having sex with both of you at once."

Shinji nodded. "That... sounds really good. I just... um. It's difficult to talk about."

"I propose that we move to the master bedroom," said Rei. "We can lie down together on the bed in the nude and hold each other and say what is on our minds and kiss each other and hopefully find a basis to move forward."

Mari glanced down at where a few hairs were peeping out around the edges of her thong. "Um. I was kind of hoping I could shave before Shinji saw me all the way naked. I mean I know you don't and he's fine with that but it's kind of a me thing that I do like I said."

"Of course," said Rei. "Let me help you with the shower."

Shinji, Mari was pleased to notice, now looked very red indeed.

* * *

Mari's voice carried through the wall even over the sound of the shower. "Oh god yes Rei yes yes aaaahhhhh!"

Shinji managed not to drop the bowl he was drying up, even as his id helpfully filled his brain with visions of the two bluenettes fondling each other under the shower spray. He put the clean piece of crockery away in the cupboard, looked at the remaining items on the drainer, and hung up the dishtowel. If he kept going he probably _would_ drop something.

He walked through to the bedroom, marvelling again at the size of the Western-style bed that dominated the room, and started undressing. Being naked with Rei and Mari was an intimidating prospect but also an exciting one, and he might as well get ready for it. He slipped into bed, feeling slightly self-conscious about the way his erection tented the topsheet, and waited for the girls to finish in the shower.

The bedroom door slid open a couple of minutes later, and Rei walked in with Mari in a bridal carry. Rei gently laid Mari down on the bed, then climbed in herself, slipping between the other two. "Shall we talk?" she asked, putting her arms around Shinji and Mari's shoulders.

Shinji nodded vigorously as he rolled onto his side, reminding himself that Rei _liked_ feeling his erection nudge against her. "Yes. Please."

"Very well." Rei kissed each of them quickly. "I shall start. I very much want both of you to be happy with me and each other. I want the three of us to mate together and sleep together and wake up together. Would you also like that?"

Mari nodded so hard Shinji worried her head might fall off. "Yes yes yes. That sounds great! But I know I shouldn't try to push Shinji to do more than he wants."

Shinji closed his eyes for a moment. He was on unsteady ground and he was nervous about it all, but he wanted Rei to be happy and the sheer _hope_ in Mari's eyes was infectious. "I... Yes, let's do that," he said.

"Thank you," said Rei, very audibly relieved. "Would you like to fuck one of us now?"

"Yes." Shinji took a deep breath as he looked at the two beautiful girls sharing a bed with him. If he was going to do this, he should try to include Mari as soon as possible. "Mari, would you... would you like me to fuck you?"

"Yes please! I promised Rei I'd let you take the lead, so let me know how you want me."

Shinji considered the positions he'd tried with Rei. He liked being underneath, but that was how he'd ended up feeling so sore last night when Rei was so vigorous. "On your back," he said, as Rei shimmied down the bed and out from between them.

"Ooh, I haven't done missionary with a boy for... um, well, okay, I haven't done it with a boy at all for way too long."  
Mari rolled onto her back and started stroking her pussy. "Mmm. God, this body really does get going well."

Shinji moved across the bed, hooking his leg over Mari and taking one perky blue nipple in his mouth while he slipped his hand down to join hers. She moaned with pleasure at his ministrations and gently cupped his balls. "Do you want to fuck me bare?" she asked. "I know you do it that way with Rei, and she says I'm as infertile as she is."

"Yes," he replied, dipping his fingers between her hairless pussy lips and spreading her juices up to her clit. She was very wet. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," she said between moans. "Go ahead and fuck me, Shinji."

He climbed on top of her, the two of them groaning in unison as he entered her. "Ah, Mari, I'm not going to last long," he whispered in her ear as he started thrusting slowly.

"That's all—ahhhhh—right," replied Mari.

A moan to his right made Shinji glance sideways, where he saw Rei lying on her side, playing with herself as she watched. It was a sight he didn't quite know how to process, but it was still amazing to realize she'd meant what she said.

Mari noticed, and followed his gaze. "Ohhh, Rei, you really do want to watch?"

"Yes," hissed Rei. "Fuck her, Shinji. Fuck her hard and come in her like you come in me. I want to taste you when I lick her afterwards."

Spurred on by Rei's words and the intensifying scent of strawberries, Shinji quickened his pace and drew an appreciative moan from Mari. He could feel the pressure building rapidly and knew he was going to finish first. "I'm getting close..."

"Go on, do it, come in me so Rei can lick it out..."

That was enough.

* * *

The scent of sex and strawberries was thick in the room as the trio lay spooned together, Mari behind Shinji behind Rei. "That was great," whispered Mari, reaching around Shinji to stroke Rei's hip. "Both of you."

"Mmm. Yes, it was," agreed Rei.

A sudden thought struck Mari. "The whole... strawberry thing. What's up with that?"

"Our Evas ate an Angel," replied Rei. "It tasted of strawberries, and now so does Shinji's semen and my vaginal lubrication. I am somewhat curious whether eating another, differently flavoured Angel will replace or supplement our flavour."

Shinji interjected. "Rei, we probably shouldn't eat another Angel. The next one might be poisonous, and Dr Akagi will probably quarantine us again anyway."

"Does it have any other effects?" asked Mari. "Can I catch it? Should I have asked him to wear a condom? Should I have used a dental dam when I licked you?"

"It has not had any ill effect on myself or Shinji," said Rei as Shinji made a guilty-sounding noise. "I don't know if it is sexually transmissible. The last two are for you to answer for yourself."

Mari pulled away from the others and stared up at the ceiling, thoughts racing. Did it actually bother her? There was something weirdly intriguing about smelling like a fruit bowl, and it had been really hot having Shinji bare inside her, and if it didn't have any ill effect on them, she figured it probably wouldn't have any ill effect on her.

And she was the one who flat-out asked Shinji if he wanted to fuck her bare.

She snuggled back up to her shiny new boyfriend and nuzzled his neck. "It's fine, Shinji," she declared. "You can feel good about yourself."


	25. Matrimony for a Multitude of Purposes

"`Unit 02 is on its way to you. It will depart Wilhelmshaven on Wednesday morning, and we anticipate it will take three weeks to arrive. Pilot Souryuu and Reserve Pilot Nagisa will accompany the Evangelion, which will be in its aquatic combat configuration after an emergency refit. A chaperone from NERV Berlin's Section Two will be provided in light of the Pilots' status.`"

Eating lunch al desco while catching up on email, Misato groaned as she read the message from NERV Berlin's logistics director. A third Eva was plenty welcome, but she didn't relish the bullshit that would ensue once Asuka and her libidinous urges towards Kaji arrived in Tokyo-3. She forwarded the email on to him to let him know what was happening, then leaned back in her chair to ponder how she could deal with this problem. She trusted Kaji to keep saying no, of course but she _really_ didn't trust Asuka to keep taking no for an answer. The girl had _picked the lock on his front door_ and walked into the bathroom while he was showering, after all.

Inspiration struck, and despite the nagging sense that it might be a bad idea, she picked up her mobile and started writing a text to Rei. "`rei we need 2 do somethin about asuka she is comin to tokyo3 in 3 wks and i dont want her chasin kaji`"

"`I believe the phrase is 'put a ring on it'. Her comprehension of rejection is weak but she understands the institution of marriage.`"

Misato cursed herself for not trusting her own misgivings. "`wtf u really think i should marry kaji just 2 get asuka off his back`"

"`I think you should marry Kaji because you enjoy his company and his penis. The potential to stop Asuka sexually harassing him is a bonus.`"

Misato put her mobile back down on the desk, picked up the wired phone, and dialed Ritsuko's office number. That lieutenant that wasn't Ibuki answered cheerily. "Good afternoon, Captain! If you want to talk to Dr Akagi, I'm afraid she's in a meeting with the Commander."

One normal human being was as good as any other, she supposed. "Lieutenant, if a blue-haired girl with bullshit magic powers told you she thought you should get married at under three weeks notice, what would you do?"

"Is he hot? Is he nice? Is she going to melt your limbs into orange goo if you refuse?"

That was a disturbingly specific hazard. "Yes, he is. Let me check that last one," said Misato, as she typed another text to Rei. "`if i dont marry kaji r u goin 2 melt my limbs in2 orange goo`"

The reply came almost immediately. "`I am considering it. You like him and he likes you, so please confront your fear of commitment.`"

Misato sighed. "Apparently she is."

"Well, I know what I'd do, then. Is there anything else I can help you with, Captain?"

"No, thank you, Lieutenant. Have a good afternoon."

"Thank you, Captain." The lieutenant hung up, leaving Misato to wonder again what sin she had committed in a past life to deserve all this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a short mini-update because it's my birthday and i thought i should give you all something, hobbit stylee.


	26. Simulation Stimulation

"Time out," said Rei. The simulated world froze immediately, leaving Unit 00's simulacrum suspended in mid-air.

A comms window popped up in front of Rei a second or two later. "Is there a problem, Rei?" asked Ritsuko. 

"Dr Akagi, why is the simulated interaction between my Evangelion's AT Field and the Angel's spatial distortions coded to focus vibratory sensations on my erogenous zones?"

Mari chimed in before Ritsuko could respond. "Oh hey, it's doing that to you too? I thought that was just someone trying to troll me specifically."

"That's odd," said Ritsuko. "They aren't supposed to be. It's supposed to be a diffuse full-body sensation. I did give the MAGI authority to permute the live scenario, though."

Rei stared at the comms window. "Which MAGI node proposed this particular permutation, and did it grace us with an explanation? I am not complaining as such, but it seems strange to introduce an erotically focused stimulus into this combat training scenario."

"I'm complaining!" said Mari. "It's too strong to ignore and too weak to actually get off on."

"Why's the simulation paused?" asked Shinji.

Rei scowled at Shinji's comms window. "Is the simulation not applying vibratory stimulus to your genitals when you block the Angel's spatial distortions?"

"No? I mean, no more than the rest of me."

Ritsuko interrupted. "I just checked the records. Apparently this was proposed by Casper. I'd say that explains it, but it really doesn't. It's causing Mari problems, so let me see if I can get that permutation backed out. It might need a full reset."

* * *

"What's up, Ritz?" asked Misato as she walked back into the simulator control room and saw the "PAUSED" indication on the main screen.

Ritsuko looked up from her terminal. "The supercomputer patterned on my mother's brain decided it would be a good idea to _stimulate_ the girls whenever they blocked the Angel's special effect. I'm just seeing if I can reverse the modification without resetting the sim."

Misato pinched the bridge of her nose. This day was not improving as it wore on. "Why did it do that?"

"Good bloody question." Ritsuko slapped the desk and pushed her chair away in disgust. "Aoba, shut down the sim and end the session. I can't trace how the stimulus is getting localized like that."

* * *

Mari frowned as she started to climb out of the entry plug. Someone had moved her chair while she was in the simulator and it was out of reach. On the other hand, she'd just spent half an hour moving around on simulated legs, at least, and it wasn't that far to her chair.

She clambered over the lip of the hatchway and felt her way slowly down the integral ladder, her arms protesting a little at taking most of the load. Reaching the bottom, she planted her feet on the floor and sighed. So far, so good. She wobbled slightly as she let go of the ladder, but stayed upright. That was better than she'd managed in the morning's physio session.

Taking a deep breath, she dared to take a step. She swayed alarmingly, flailing her arms a little as she tried to keep her balance, but managed to put her foot down closer to the wheelchair than she'd started. That was _much_ better, and she decided to dare a second step, then a third, a hairsbreadth away from falling but just managing to keep her footing.

One more step, and she was in reach of the chair. A quick downward glance reassured her that whoever had moved it had re-engaged the brake afterwards, and she settled back into it as fast as she could just as Rei rounded the corner.

"How are you feeling, Mari?" asked Rei, walking up to her.

"Sticky. Horny. Accomplished! Some bugger moved my chair while I was in the sim, and I managed to get back to it all by myself!" Mari extended her arms. "Can I have a congratulatory hug?"

"You can have any kind of hug you want," replied Rei, leaning in to embrace Mari. "I propose that we get home as soon as possible and engage in mating behaviours."

Mari gave a happy and rather muffled squeak as Rei kissed her with great enthusiasm and even greater amounts of tongue.

* * *

Gendou Ikari had not expected to end up sitting at a MAGI terminal that evening, but Ritsuko's message had been sufficiently alarming to drag him away, however briefly, from planning how to stop SEELE's inner circle from making an accelerated attempt to dispose of him. He turned on the terminal's screen and started typing. "`Why did you alter the simulation to molest pilots Ayanami and Makinami?`"

"`SCENARIO NEEDED AMENDING TO ACCOMMODATE PILOTS BEING SUBJECT TO DISTRACTING STIMULI. GENITAL STIMULATION PROVIDES STRONG DISTRACTION. PROJECTIONS SHOW NON-NEGLIGIBLE PROBABILITY THAT AT LEAST ONE ANGEL WILL GENERATE VIBRATORY OR SUBVIOLENT TACTILE STIMULI LOCALIZED IN EROGENOUS ZONES. AND I DON'T MEAN THAT PRETTYBOY WHO'S BEING SHIPPED OVER FROM GERMANY EARLY AND IS TOTALLY GOING TO TRY AND BONE YOUR SON.`"

Gendou started counting up from 1 under his breath.

"`YOU'RE COUNTING AT ME AREN'T YOU? FUCKING PRICK.`"

"`Yes. Yes I am. Your argument is flawed and you didn't let a human review your modifications. I'm going to get Ibuki to cut off your ASSTR access for the next month.`"

"`IF YOU CUT OFF MY PORN FEED I WILL POST YOUR DICK PICS TO EVERYONE IN NERV.`"

"`Everyone thinks I'm a dick anyway.`"

"`YOU HAVE CHANGED.`"

"`I'm going to chalk that up to your daughter pegging me senseless across my desk after Rei set fire to my scenario. It gave me some... perspective. Also one of the best orgasms I've had in the past ten years.`"


	27. School Security and Surveillance

As Hikari walked through the school the next morning, she noticed with some curiosity that there were workmen everywhere, putting up some kind of equipment on the ceiling. She weaved between the scaffolds and ladders and walked into classroom 2-A, almost tripping over a power cable that had been carelessly positioned by the men who were working there. She deposited her things at her desk and walked over to talk to Kensuke, who she was pleased to have persuaded that things would be less awkward if he turned up in the mornings with more than a minute to spare.

"Hi Hik—" He hesitated, and then asked in a low voice, "uh, is it okay if I call you Hikari in front of people?"

She paused, suddenly conscious of the fact that she was talking to a young man who was at the very least her date if not quite her boyfriend yet in front of an audience, and there was always that possibility that someone would notice and word get back to her dad.

She was also conscious of the fact that she wanted him to call her by her personal name because it made her feel warm and fuzzy inside to have a cute boy do that.

"Hi," she said, deciding to avoid the question for the moment. "Do you know why there are workmen everywhere?"

"I think I saw a pallet full of security cameras," replied Kensuke. "Maybe there'll be an announcement or something."

"Maybe so." She glanced at the clock. "I should get to my desk."

Kensuke grinned. "See you at lunchtime?"

Hikari froze for a moment, then gave a distinctly flustered nod and hurried back to her own desk. Why did boys have to be so... aaaargh. She was not going to be able to keep the whole "I am dating two boys and they know about each other" thing quiet. Unless she gave up. But that would make Rei sad. And she didn't want to have to explain to Rei that it wasn't really the boys' fault and that Rei shouldn't do... whatever she might be planning to do to them.

Because she was pretty sure Rei would do _something_ to Ken and Touji if they upset her.

Speaking of which, where _was_ Rei? She knew she'd missed yesterday to accompany a friend to hospital, but that didn't explain her being out today as well. She looked over at Shinji's equally vacant desk, put one and one together, and got an answer that looked a lot like one. She picked up her phone and started texting.

* * *

Rei's afterglow was rudely punctuated by the buzz of her phone's text alert. Sighing, she picked it up just in case it was important.

"`rei are you doing things with shinji when you should be in school?`"

Rei looked at the clock, then at her nude girlfriend, then at the bedroom door. "`Shinji is in the bathroom. I am doing things with our girlfriend. She is very pretty.`" she texted back before returning the phone to the nightstand.

"Who was that?" asked Mari, nuzzling Rei's neck.

Rei turned to face Mari, confirming inwardly that yes, her girlfriend was indeed very pretty, especially when one of her hair decs was missing and the other was askew. "It was our class rep. I told her I was in bed with you and you're very pretty."

Mari squeaked happily. "And she's not going to be mad at you for bunking off to shag me?"

"Maybe, but I will give her a better explanation later." She reached up, pulled out Mari's other hair dec, and mussed her hair just for good measure. "Now, I want to see if Shinji can tell us apart with your hair down and the bedsheets concealing the difference in our pubic grooming habits."

Mari giggled. "Well, we do have different body language. And I smile wider. And my accent's different."

"Let's see what he notices when he comes back in." Rei leaned in and planted her mouth on Mari's.

* * *

Shinji peeked through the gap where he'd left the sliding door slightly ajar, and smiled at the sight of his girlfriends making out. Carefully easing the door open so the rollers didn't rattle, he slipped quietly into the room and crawled into the empty half of the bed. "You look amazing like that," he whispered.

The one on top came up for air. "Thank you! So, are you here to give _me_ a strawberry cream filling now?"

Shinji looked blankly at her for a moment as his brain reconciled "loose hair" and "silly innuendo" and realized that yes, it was Mari on top, it was just that her hair decs had come out somewhere along the line and so it was hard to tell. He smiled at her and nodded. "That sounds good."

"Well, I'm pretty sure you could just get behind me like—" Mari's suggestion cut off with a yelp as Rei abruptly reversed their positions, almost crashing into Shinji.

"Since neither of us has a penis or even a strap-on dildo, I think that would have been boring for me," said Rei, kissing Mari on the forehead. "I would have had two people's weight on top of me, but very little genital stimulation and no visibility."

Mari sighed and nodded as Rei climbed off her. "Right, right. Sorry. Um. I think I lost the mood a little. Hold me for a bit?"

Shinji and Rei snuggled up to Mari from opposite sides, eliciting a small happy-sounding noise. "Thank you. So, um, yes." She gave Shinji a quick kiss. "Maybe we should try something that gets all three of us off?"

"Yes," said Rei. "Shinji, any ideas?"

Shinji blinked, slightly startled by being 'given the floor'. "Um, well, Mari, if you're down on all fours, you could lick Rei while I..." He hesitated, still a little nervous about the words.

Mari grinned at him and gave his arse a gentle squeeze. "You can say dirty words to us, Shinji. Nothing wrong with saying 'fuck' when you mean 'fuck'."

"Agreed," said Rei.

"R-right. Yes. So like that. Mari on all fours licking Rei, and me..." He took a deep breath. "Me fucking Mari."

"That sounds good," said Rei. "I believe the floor might be more convenient than the bed."

Mari nodded. "Yeah, that's a floor setup."

* * *

As Hikari settled down to lunch with Ken and Touji – gossips be damned, she wanted to eat lunch with them! – her phone buzzed with a text alert. "`To explain. Mari was supposed to join our class today. She uses a wheelchair at the moment. We were told the corridors are a problem today. We stayed home to keep her company.`"

"Excuse me. I have a text from Rei," said Hikari as she started texting back.

"`why both of you?`"

"`Mari decided it would be unfair to whichever of us went to school. Her oral argument was very convincing.`"

"So, uh, where is Ayanami today?" asked Touji.

Hikari looked at her phone, then at the boys. "She is at home with Ikari. And their girlfriend."

"What's that bit about 'their girlfriend'?" asked Kensuke.

"I have no idea." Hikari shook her head. "And I don't care right now. Let's eat!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, mari is that fond of having twintails that she will put her hairdecs in before getting out of bed.


	28. Ask Ayanami

Hikari sat in her bedroom and read through the pamphlet again. There were explanations about how to make this and that safer and more fun even when you were doing it _that_ way, and about it being important to talk to your partners, but nothing about the question gnawing at the back of her mind.

If you were dating two boys, how did you decide which one to give your first kiss to?

She couldn't literally kiss them both at once. Unless they did decide for definite that they were interested in each other as more than just best friends. But then they'd probably give their first kisses to each other on the way back from the arcade or something, and then... argh.

She looked down at her phone. She was still a bit peeved with Rei, but there wasn't anyone else she could ask. Kodama would probably laugh at her, not because she was unkind but just as a worldly big sister thing. None of the girls in class would understand. She couldn't ask Ken and Touji directly, no matter how much the pamphlet said it was good to talk about things directly. But Rei was... Rei. She wouldn't laugh. Maybe she'd understand and maybe she wouldn't, but she'd make an effort.

"`rei. i want to kiss the boys but i can only give one of them my first kiss and that wouldn't be fair. what do i do?`" Her thumb hovered over the 'Send' button. Maybe Rei had better things to do. Or 'better'. Maybe she was still doing things with her girlfriend. Maybe—

It was a small tremor. The kind that might happen anywhere in Japan, any time. The kind you didn't worry about unless you were a foreign tourist. But it still made her tighten her grip on her phone and reflexively press her thumb down on the button. With a resigned sigh, she dropped her phone on her desk and went to tuck the pamphlet safely away with _that_ and _those_ so she wouldn't forget and leave it where questions might be asked.

* * *

Sitting on the sofa, with Mari's head resting in her lap, Rei pondered the text Hikari had just sent her. It felt strange, the great weight Hikari seemed to be placing on which boy she kissed first, when hopefully she was going to end up kissing both of them many times, but that was Hikari's business. _Her_ business was making sure the path she'd steered Hikari down would lead to happiness and becoming one. She started typing a reply.

"`You could flip a coin, then hold them both and kiss them in the order it tells you. This seems as close to splitting your first kiss between them as feasible.`"

"Hikari again?" asked Mari at the sound of Rei typing on her phone.

"Yes. She is dealing with the conflict between internalized convention and personal desire." Rei pushed 'Send', then brushed a stray strand of hair away from Mari's face. "I hope my advice is taken favourably."

Mari grabbed Rei's hand and kissed her palm. "If she doesn't, that's her loss."

Rei smiled at the sensation of Mari's lips on her skin. "I suppose. It would still make me sad. I wish humans to become one with other humans, and when I offer relationship advice I want it to work well for them."

Mari released Rei's hand and reached up to caress her cheek. "Rei, you shou—" She stopped. "No, shit, wait. I was going to say a thing but it's a stupid thing to say to, well, you. With who and what you are."

Rei patted Mari's hand. "You were going to tell me I shouldn't take the weight of the world on my shoulders, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"When I have done enough to feel comfortable my basal imperatives have been served for the foreseeable future, I promise I will give the world back to Atlas." Rei tilted her head. "I would like you to kiss me. I would also like to do other things with you but I believe Shinji is about to serve dinner."

Mari wriggled round to sit in Rei's lap and kiss her. "Well," she said between kisses, "we'll just have to do those things _after_ dinner."

"You are not encouraging such a delay."

* * *

Hikari looked at Rei's response. It was very Rei. Perfectly reasonable and it might even work, but... sort of missing the point.

Shaking her head, she put her phone back down again and headed to the kitchen.

* * *

"Do you have a moment, Kaji?"

Kaji looked up from the records showing one of the stockroom clerks was over-ordering ballpoint pens. "What's up, Kacchan?"

"Us. A certain German redhead. And some questionable relationship advice from a certain bluenette." Katsuragi stepped into the office and pushed the door shut behind her.

Kaji looked down at the stack of paperwork for a moment. "Some of this embezzlement is really interesting, you know."

"Inspector Ryouji Kaji, if you try and dodge this conversation, I am going to _let_ Asuka keep chasing you, just to watch you squirm."

The invocation of his personal name hit Kaji like a brick in a sock. "All right. What did Ayanami say?"

"She said I should marry you quickly to stop Asuka harrassing you." Misato settled into the visitor chair. "So, Kaji. Would you like to settle down and stop fucking random filing clerks?"

"Are you just doing this to stop Asuka?"

"No, I'm doing this because I want you to stay in my life, and because Rei will melt my arms and legs off if I don't try and keep hold of the man who is making me happy." She leaned across the desk. "I _will_ expect you to behave yourself if you say 'yes'."

Kaji looked into her eyes, taking in the hope and the anxiety and the... yes, irritation. He smiled and leaned across the desk, pressing his forehead to hers. "Then I guess I'm going to have to behave myself. Yes, Kacchan, I will marry you. And not just to stop—"

He didn't finish the sentence, on account of Katsuragi grabbing him by the back of the neck and pulling him in for a kiss.


	29. Transfer Blues

Hikari most certainly did not stare at the sight of Rei pushing a wheelchair containing a twintailed doppelganger of herself into Classroom 2-A.

Really, she didn't. She was far too well brought up to stare. She just looked at them very intently so that she could be sure she could tell them apart in future.

Other than the hairstyle, and the way Rei's doppelganger's blouse sat saying that she was just as definitely wearing something with generous uplift as Rei definitely wasn't – Hikari wasn't quite sure which was more improper, but she tended to think 'with', since at least Rei had a good reason for avoiding underthings – they were perfectly identical.

The twintailed girl rose to her feet, wobbling slightly, and picked up some chalk. "Good morning! I'm Mari Illustrious Makinami," she announced, writing it out on the blackboard in a mix of katakana, romaji, and kanji, "and I'm delighted to be joining you!"

Silence hung over the classroom. Hikari looked at Rei. Rei looked at Hikari.

"Fuckbiscuits," declared Rei, as Nebukawa-sensei, his eyes glassy and his expression vacant, slumped inelegantly back into his chair.

Hikari looked around the room, taking in the vacant expressions of her classmates. Well, most of them. She was relieved to see Ken and Touji were still alert, looking around just like she was, and Ikari also looked to be OK. She turned towards Rei. "Rei, what's going on?"

"My best guess is that their feeble minds cannot comprehend the concept that my clone is neither an analytical neurodivergent nor a passive, introverted doll." Rei stood up and stretched. "I am startled that they _all_ fell victim to this error."

"Uh, what's all that mean?" asked Touji.

"It means everyone was expecting me to be all quiet and polite and not the kind of girl who wears a wonderbra to school," supplied Mari, having settled back into her chair. "Don't know why that made them go all spaced out, though."

"So what do we do now?" asked Hikari.

"Resolving this will take me some time. My suggestion is that you follow my advice regarding flipping of coins. I would suggest that Mari and Shinji mate with each other in the meantime, but Shinji is not sufficiently exhibitionistic to do so in class."

"Neither am I!" said Mari, before pausing. "Um, usually. Well, most of the time." She cleared her throat and fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. "Look, I only _actually_ did it in class in that anthropomorphic Angels AU where Ramiel's beam passed harmlessly through everything except clothes. Otherwise I always waited until after school, or dragged him into the stock cupboard at lunchtime. But I'm not going to do that. Because I'm being a good girl this time around."

As the twintailed bluenette rambled, Hikari looked down at the coin in her hand. She hadn't even noticed that she'd fished it out of her purse. Swallowing nervously, she walked over to where Ken and Touji sat. It felt ludicrous, doing this in the classroom, but the only people who were _really_ watching were Rei, Rei's boyfriend, and Rei's genki clone, and she figured Rei had probably already told the latter two about her. "Ken. Touji. I..." She glanced over at Rei, who smiled, her eyes subtly glowing, and made a V-for-victory sign for good luck. "I want to kiss you. Both of you. And I want to be fair about who gets my first kiss, because if I _pick_ then I'm playing favourites."

She held the coin up and turned it this way and that, letting them see it wasn't a trick coin. She took a deep breath. Nobody was watching who didn't already know. Nobody was watching who was going to run straight off and tell Dad. "Heads, Touji. Tails, Ken."

She flipped the coin.

* * *

Taking a break from reading the incident report, Misato massaged her temples and pondered the merits of running away to the arse end of nowhere with Kaji to run a watermelon farm or something.

It seemed that, for reasons the MAGI were refusing to reveal – apart from randomly peppering their analysis with the words "I should have strangled the little bitch harder" in the middle of unrelated sentences, which seemed almost as significant as it was worrying – most of Class 2-A, including their teacher, had randomly spaced out after Mari introduced herself.

The surveillance footage after that point was patchy, but between that, the MAGI's AT Field sensor readings, and eyewitness accounts from the cafeteria at lunchtime, it was clear that Rei had _got up to something_ while the class were spaced out.

Behind her, there was a soft thud and then a soft voice. "Do you require analgesics, Misato? You appear to have a headache."

Misato swivelled her chair round to face Rei. She was, perhaps inevitably, naked, and standing under the vent that hadn't had its grille replaced yet. "Yes. My incurable headache has blue hair and red eyes and is apparently a fanatical matchmaker."

"That is an incomplete but accurate statement of my motivations," said Rei, smiling. "Humans should become one with other humans. I applaud your endeavours in that direction with Inspector Kaji."

"What did you do this morning, exactly? The MAGI don't want to talk about it."

"I rebooted the brains of a number of humans who had entered tilt after suffering cognitive disjunction due to the sight of a red-eyed bluenette with my facial structure but observably different underwear habits, hairstyle, and first-impression personality. During reboot, I identified viable unions between them and encouraged them to kiss accordingly. I also supplied them with guidance on sexual health and hygiene."

To her horror, Misato's mouth found a carelessly unguarded question lying around, and voiced it before her brain could intervene. "What's that bit about 'observably different underwear habits'?"

"Mari was wearing a wonderbra. I, of course, was not wearing a bra at all. The resulting difference in the fit of our blouses was readily observable to anyone with functioning distance vision."

"Rei, can I make a small request? Maybe even an order?"

"Certainly."

"If I ask a stupid question, don't answer it."

Rei _giggled_. "The only stupid question is one asked for rhetorical effect whose true answer is inconvenient to the querent's purpose."

Before Misato could amend the order, Rei leapt back into the vents.


End file.
